Gail Alexan­der

Out­go­ing am­bas­sador Therese Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis, who was ex­pect­ed in T&T in time for a Sep­tem­ber 3 meet­ing with Gov­ern­ment, is still in Gene­va and is ex­pect­ed to at­tend cel­e­bra­tions of T&T's In­de­pen­dence there, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day. She will re­turn af­ter the cel­e­bra­tions, they said. Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis was re­called from the T&T's mis­sion in Gene­va three weeks ago by the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry. This fol­lowed wide­spread pub­lic con­dem­na­tion of the re­marks she made at an in­ter­na­tion­al diplo­ma­cy sym­po­sium, where she ram­bled at length on per­son­al mat­ters and her for­mer Health Min­istry ac­tiv­i­ties. Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan, who act­ed as For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter at the time, held dis­cus­sions with Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis on her state­ments. For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an sub­se­quent­ly said she was be­ing re­called and her one year stint as Min­is­ter would end in Sep­tem­ber. Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Ja­mal Mo­hammed had said Cor­nelis would be re­turn­ing to T&T?on Sep­tem­ber 3 to hold dis­cus­sions with the For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter. At that meet­ing it is ex­pect­ed Bap­tiste- Cor­nelis will be giv­en her of­fi­cial "walk­ing pa­pers" of dis­missal. Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis was ex­pect­ed to be back in T&T by the end of this month in time for the Sep­tem­ber 3 meet­ing. But yes­ter­day, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said she had asked to be in Gene­va long enough to at­tend In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions at T&T's Gene­va mis­sion and will now be re­turn­ing af­ter that, lat­er on.

They were un­cer­tain if she would re­turn in time for the planned Sep­tem­ber 3 meet­ing. But they said the meet­ing among min­istry of­fi­cials would still take place. Se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said they be­lieved Bap­tiste- Cor­nelis was at­tend­ing the cel­e­bra­tions in Gene­va on­ly in a pri­vate ca­pac­i­ty and not as am­bas­sador. Yes­ter­day, the min­istry's com­mu­ni­ca­tion sec­tion had no word on the sit­u­a­tion and was as­cer­tain­ing ex­act­ly when Cor­nelis was re­turn­ing. A fe­male who an­swered?Dook­er­an's cell phone yes­ter­day said the min­is­ter did not have his cell phone. As for who would re­place Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis in Gene­va, a spokesman said yes­ter­day for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter John?Sandy was still tipped for the post. Soon af­ter the June 25 Cab­i­net reshuf­fle, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had of­fered Sandy a diplo­mat­ic post in Gene­va. There has been no word on that since then, save that "talks were con­tin­u­ing." Sandy re­turned home this week from va­ca­tion abroad. A spokesman for Sandy said up to yes­ter­day he had not been con­tact­ed about the ini­tial of­fer. Sandy had served in a diplo­mat­ic po­si­tion over 1997 to 2000 at T&T's Wash­ing­ton mis­sion and had al­so rep­re­sent­ed T&T on two Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States com­mit­tees at that time.