Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Two months af­ter say­ing Cari­com is not a re­li­able part­ner to Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T), Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ripped in­to the re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion again, la­belling it dys­func­tion­al.

In a loaded state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Per­sad-Bisses­sar tore in­to Cari­com say­ing, “Cari­com is not a re­li­able part­ner at this time. The fact is that be­neath the thin mask of uni­ty, there are many widen­ing fis­sures that, if left un­ad­dressed, will lead to its im­plo­sion.

“The or­gan­i­sa­tion is de­te­ri­o­rat­ing rapid­ly due to poor man­age­ment, lax ac­count­abil­i­ty, fac­tion­al di­vi­sions, desta­bil­is­ing poli­cies, pri­vate con­flicts be­tween re­gion­al lead­ers and po­lit­i­cal par­ties and the in­ap­pro­pri­ate med­dling in the do­mes­tic pol­i­tics of mem­ber states. That’s the plain truth.”

She added, “Cari­com can­not con­tin­ue to op­er­ate in this dys­func­tion­al and self-de­struc­tive man­ner as it is a grave dis­ser­vice to the peo­ple of the Caribbean. The Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty must face the rot with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion with trans­paren­cy and hon­esty. Hid­ing be­hind the glib­ness of diplo­ma­cy, fake so­phis­ti­ca­tion and false nar­ra­tives is self-de­feat­ing.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Cari­com has cho­sen to dis­par­age “our great­est al­ly, the Unit­ed States” while “lend­ing sup­port to the (Nico­las) Maduro nar­co-gov­ern­ment head­ed by a dic­ta­tor who has im­pris­oned and killed thou­sands of civil­ians and op­po­si­tion mem­bers as well as threat­ened two Cari­com mem­bers”. She said that Cari­com has “clear­ly lost its way” and there are reper­cus­sions for this stance.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar broke ranks with the re­gion­al bloc over the Unit­ed States’ visa re­stric­tions.

She point­ed to the US Gov­ern­ment-is­sued fact sheet on De­cem­ber 16, which out­lined the de­ci­sion by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump to fur­ther re­strict and lim­it the en­try of cer­tain for­eign na­tion­als in the in­ter­est of Unit­ed States na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

In a late-night state­ment on Fri­day by the Bu­reau of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty, the body said it not­ed with con­cern the procla­ma­tion is­sued by the Gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States im­pos­ing par­tial en­try re­stric­tions on na­tion­als of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and Do­mini­ca.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­tanced her­self from the state­ment, say­ing, “I ad­vise cit­i­zens that the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go is not a par­ty to the state­ment is­sued by the Bu­reau of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment. I ac­knowl­edge the right of the Bu­reau of the Con­fer­ence to ex­press its views. How­ev­er, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment main­tains its own po­si­tion on the mat­ter and recog­nis­es the sov­er­eign right of the Unit­ed States to make de­ci­sions in fur­ther­ance of its best in­ter­ests.”

She went fur­ther by say­ing, “Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Gov­ern­ment does not bind it­self to the po­lit­i­cal ide­olo­gies or for­eign, eco­nom­ic and se­cu­ri­ty poli­cies of any oth­er Cari­com mem­ber gov­ern­ment. Mem­ber gov­ern­ments are free to make de­ci­sions in the best in­ter­ests of their cit­i­zens.”

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne pub­licly re­buked Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day for com­ments per­ceived as en­dors­ing def­er­ence to the Unit­ed States. Browne ac­cused her of un­der­min­ing re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty and spread­ing false­hoods, re­ject­ing claims that An­tigua and Bar­bu­da “cursed” the US ad­min­is­tra­tion. He warned the episode ex­posed deep­er struc­tur­al weak­ness­es with­in Cari­com but ex­pressed hope for a stronger, more ef­fec­tive re­gion­al bloc.

T&T am­bas­sador to Cari­com, Ralph Maraj, was asked to com­ment on the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment. While he said he need­ed to read the state­ment be­fore com­ment­ing, there was no an­swer when we called back.

The Sun­day Guardian al­so reached out to For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers but did not get an an­swer.

For­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne told the Sun­day Guardian, “This lat­est at­tack on Cari­com by the Prime Min­is­ter rep­re­sents a new low point for her as the Head of Gov­ern­ment of one of the found­ing mem­ber states of our re­gion­al fam­i­ly. Her an­ti-Cari­com rant is er­rat­ic, in­flam­ma­to­ry, full of base­less rhetoric and even in­cludes a para­graph that por­tends to pub­licly “ex­plain”, in a most mis­lead­ing and self-serv­ing man­ner, a US po­si­tion to Cari­com lead­ers on be­half of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. Her au­dac­i­ty can nev­er be mis­tak­en for pru­dence... The “un­re­li­able” part­ner in this re­gion is her, not the rest of Cari­com.”

An­a­lyst: Di­vi­sion deep and ev­i­dent

Re­act­ing to the state­ment, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath told the Sun­day Guardian, “It is dys­func­tion­al at this point in time, and there is no col­lab­o­ra­tion or co­op­er­a­tion or no ide­ol­o­gy that de­fines Cari­com as a Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty. Cari­com has two mean­ings, the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty as well as the Caribbean Com­mon Mar­ket, and so this ques­tions the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty as­pect of it as to whether there is an ide­o­log­i­cal po­si­tion, a com­mon ide­o­log­i­cal po­si­tion, or whether there is any com­mon po­si­tion at all, pol­i­cy po­si­tion, in terms of where Cari­com is and where Cari­com is go­ing.”

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed said Cari­com’s di­vi­sion was deep and ev­i­dent. He told the Sun­day Guardian, “Look at what has hap­pened with re­gards to An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and Do­mini­ca. Prime Min­is­ters of those na­tions had to go and say, ‘But what did we do wrong?’ Bot­tom line is, you did not sup­port us. You were brazen. You be­haved in a man­ner that they can’t do us noth­ing. You be­have in a man­ner that we are sov­er­eign and we could stand on our own.”