Former prime minister Patrick Manning is calling on the Government of Trinidad and Tobago to apologise to Cuba President Raul Castro for insulting him. Speaking at a press conference at his San Fernando East Constituency office yesterday, Manning said the fiasco involving the use of the Hilton Trinidad for the Fourth Caricom/Cuba was totally unacceptable and unnecessary. Manning said the Government made a "a blunder of great proportions," by offending one of the country's key allies in the Caribbean. Castro was obviously insulted, Manning said, adding: "The Government of T&T owes the Government of Cuba and particular President Castro an apology for the fiasco they exposed him to," he said. Saying that Castro made a great contribution to the success of the Fifth Summit of Americas in T&T 2009, he suggested that the Government send a special amnesty to the Cuban government and President.
Recalling that in 1972, the Heads of four States, including T&T, passed a resolution in the context of sovereign rights to determine their own course and to break the isolation of Cuba. Instead of exercising the sovereign right and hosting the summit in a facility that it owns, he said the Government "sort to involve the foreign policy of another country and use that to change the venue of the meeting". He said the Government ought to have recognised that there were sensitivities involved in hosting the Summit at the Hilton and used diplomatic measures to deal with them. Manning said T&T Ambassador in Washington could have gone to State Department and clarified the matter before it got out of hand.
Manning also called on the Government to resolve an issue of irrelevance that arose in Parliament on Friday when he sought to respond to Rambachan's statement that cast aspersions on the previous administration which he had headed. Saying that Rambachan's statement also bore no relation to the Administration of Justice Electronic Monitoring Bill 2011, he said: "The question that has to be resolved is whether relevance means relevance to the Bill at hand or relevant to the debate as the debate develops." Manning said his view that it has to be relevant to the debate as it develops because if it is not then a bias will exist in favour of one side. He said on Friday it was done by the Government, but it can easily be done by the Opposition.