DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her Gov­ern­ment is prepar­ing to re­ceive St Kitts and Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Ter­rance Drew, af­ter he sig­nalled in­ter­est in vis­it­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go in his ca­pac­i­ty as chair of Cari­com.

Drew made the dis­clo­sure dur­ing an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, where he said the re­gion­al bloc does not be­lieve Trinidad and To­ba­go was com­plic­it in the Unit­ed States’ ar­rest of oust­ed Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

“Yes, the For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter did re­ceive the in­vi­ta­tion and was in­struct­ed to arrange the meet­ing,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said dur­ing a What­sApp ex­change with Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day.

How­ev­er, she did not re­spond to ques­tions on whether the pro­posed en­gage­ment could serve as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­set strained re­la­tions with Cari­com.

Drew had al­so in­di­cat­ed that he hoped to meet Per­sad-Bisses­sar at Cari­com’s 50th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment in Feb­ru­ary, not­ing that cau­cus-lev­el dis­cus­sions would be con­fi­den­tial.

The Prime Min­is­ter, how­ev­er, has raised con­cerns about in­for­ma­tion leaks with­in the re­gion­al body.

“Cari­com cau­cus dis­cus­sions are fre­quent­ly leaked. I have no con­fi­dence that dis­cus­sions of the cau­cus will re­main con­fi­den­tial,” she said.

She added that per­cep­tions sur­round­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s role in Maduro’s ar­rest would per­sist re­gard­less of of­fi­cial ex­pla­na­tions.

“Peo­ple will be­lieve what they want re­gard­ing Maduro’s ar­rest. So be it,” she said.

Re­act­ing to her com­ments, for­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne de­scribed the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­marks as “un­for­tu­nate,” ar­gu­ing that they re­flect a con­sis­tent­ly ad­ver­sar­i­al pos­ture to­ward the re­gion­al bloc.

“It seems that the Prime Min­is­ter is un­able to re­fer to Cari­com with­out ex­press­ing neg­a­tiv­i­ty and sus­pi­cion to­ward the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty. This is un­for­tu­nate as none of her pre­de­ces­sors chose to view Cari­com in those terms.”

Browne al­so crit­i­cised what he said was the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse to ef­forts by the Cari­com chair to re­build re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty.

“Even when an olive branch is ex­tend­ed in an ef­fort to re­store re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty, it ap­pears that this cur­rent UNC has an agen­da that points them in an­oth­er di­rec­tion. This Gov­ern­ment would do well to re­mem­ber that we are in­sep­a­ra­ble from Cari­com; Cari­com is us, and we are Cari­com, al­ways stronger to­geth­er.”

De­spite his crit­i­cism, Browne urged con­tin­ued en­gage­ment with the Cari­com chair, say­ing di­a­logue could help de-es­ca­late what he de­scribed as the Prime Min­is­ter’s den­i­gra­tion of the bloc. He al­so re­it­er­at­ed that she should at­tend meet­ings along­side her re­gion­al coun­ter­parts.

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les echoed calls for the Prime Min­is­ter to at­tend the sum­mit, say­ing the fo­rum pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty to raise con­cerns di­rect­ly, though he does not be­lieve her ab­sence would desta­bilise the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

“I think it is in our in­ter­est to at­tend these meet­ings, and the Prime Min­is­ter should go to these meet­ings. So, I’m wait­ing to see what she’s go­ing to do. As I said, if she doesn’t go, Cari­com will con­tin­ue. They will con­tin­ue talk­ing in some form or fash­ion, but it doesn’t af­fect the func­tion­ing of Cari­com.”

Gon­za­les said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pres­ence would sig­nal to the re­gion that Trinidad and To­ba­go is com­mit­ted to re­solv­ing dif­fer­ences col­lec­tive­ly.

He added that send­ing a rep­re­sen­ta­tive, even the For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter, would not car­ry the same weight.

“The Prime Min­is­ters don’t feel com­fort­able talk­ing to our Min­is­ter or some­body be­low the rank of the Prime Min­is­ter. So, I have dif­fi­cul­ty when she says that she’s not go­ing to these meet­ings.”