DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ex­pressed deep dis­ap­point­ment over the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to al­low the Unit­ed States to use Trinidad and To­ba­go’s air­ports for lo­gis­ti­cal sup­port op­er­a­tions, de­scrib­ing the move as an at­tempt to make the coun­try a “vas­sal state.”

Row­ley spoke to Guardian Me­dia on the is­sue out­side the Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tist Church at Stan­more Av­enue, Port-of- Spain yes­ter­day, af­ter the fu­ner­al of Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) stal­wart Dr Fer­di­nand Fer­reira. He was asked to com­ment on re­cent de­vel­op­ments that have drawn crit­i­cism from Venezuela and re­newed de­bate amongst the pop­u­la­tion about the coun­try’s for­eign pol­i­cy di­rec­tion.

The for­mer prime min­is­ter said Trinidad and To­ba­go has his­tor­i­cal­ly guard­ed its sov­er­eign­ty care­ful­ly, even while main­tain­ing re­la­tions with ma­jor glob­al pow­ers. He ar­gued that the cur­rent ap­proach risks un­der­min­ing that lega­cy and ap­pears to be a sharp break from the long-stand­ing tra­di­tion of in­de­pen­dent diplo­ma­cy.

“I’m very dis­ap­point­ed. I lived in this coun­try since 1962 and I was al­ways tremen­dous­ly proud of Trinidad and To­ba­go and I’m still proud of Trinidad and To­ba­go. And as a small na­tion, we held our heads up high,” Row­ley said.

Re­flect­ing on his time in of­fice, he said suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments had sought to project the coun­try as prin­ci­pled and in­de­pen­dent, re­gard­less of its size.

“And as leader of this coun­try, when­ev­er I spoke or took a po­si­tion any­where, the po­si­tion was that we might be small but we are not in­signif­i­cant,” he said.

Row­ley ac­cused the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led ad­min­is­tra­tion of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of qui­et­ly shift­ing away from that pos­ture, sug­gest­ing the de­ci­sion was tak­en with­out suf­fi­cient trans­paren­cy or pub­lic en­gage­ment.

“I think for me, it is very hor­ri­ble to see a prime min­is­ter se­cret­ly, dis­dain­ful­ly, dis­mis­sive­ly con­vert proud Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to a vas­sal state,” he said.

The Gov­ern­ment has said the use of lo­cal air­ports by the Unit­ed States is for lo­gis­ti­cal and se­cu­ri­ty-re­lat­ed pur­pos­es, but de­tails sur­round­ing the arrange­ment have been lim­it­ed. Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day de­scribed the op­er­a­tions as rou­tine, af­ter To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said he al­so heard of the de­ci­sion via the me­dia re­lease sent out by the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs on Mon­day.

The is­sue has tak­en on greater sen­si­tiv­i­ty giv­en the strained re­la­tions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela, and Cara­cas’ pub­lic crit­i­cism of what it sees as re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion, es­pe­cial­ly from T&T, with the US mil­i­tary.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les, who was al­so at the fu­ner­al, echoed con­cerns about trans­paren­cy, say­ing she was trou­bled that much of what cit­i­zens are learn­ing about the is­sue is com­ing from in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia rather than di­rect­ly from their own Gov­ern­ment. She said the ab­sence of a clear, com­pre­hen­sive ex­pla­na­tion has fu­elled spec­u­la­tion and un­cer­tain­ty, and called on the prime min­is­ter to ad­dress the na­tion di­rect­ly.

“I would main­tain my po­si­tion on the im­por­tance of the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter speak­ing to the na­tion on these mat­ters. You know, it’s un­for­tu­nate that so of­ten you hear more about what’s hap­pen­ing in your coun­try from out­side than you hear from the Prime Min­is­ter, as well as the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (Min­is­ter of De­fence/Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty),” Beck­les said.

She warned that con­flict­ing or in­com­plete in­for­ma­tion could fur­ther erode pub­lic trust, point­ing to pre­vi­ous con­tro­ver­sies where of­fi­cial ex­pla­na­tions emerged slow­ly or in frag­ments.

“So, I would say that, sim­i­lar to the radar, you know, we are hop­ing that we’re not go­ing to hear sev­er­al dif­fer­ent sto­ries. But I would urge the Prime Min­is­ter that it’s very im­por­tant to ad­dress the na­tion on these mat­ters,” she added.

Beck­les said clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion was es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant giv­en the coun­try’s strate­gic lo­ca­tion and the po­ten­tial im­pli­ca­tions for re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and for­eign re­la­tions.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers for com­ment but nei­ther had re­spond­ed up to press time.