Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

For­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne has re­ject­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s ex­pla­na­tion for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s de­ci­sion to vote against ex­tend­ing the man­date of Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights Volk­er Türk, ac­cus­ing For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers of of­fer­ing “new ex­cus­es” days af­ter the con­tro­ver­sial vote.

In a lengthy Face­book post yes­ter­day, Browne said Sobers’ de­fence of the Ju­ly 24 vote was un­con­vinc­ing and failed to ex­plain why Trinidad and To­ba­go broke ranks with the rest of Cari­com.

“UNC Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has of­fered some new ex­cus­es af­ter he in­struct­ed our diplo­mats at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly to cast a high­ly un­usu­al vote,” Browne wrote.

He not­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go was the on­ly Cari­com coun­try to op­pose Türk’s reap­point­ment, ar­gu­ing that the Gov­ern­ment ini­tial­ly re­mained silent in the hope the vote would go un­no­ticed.

He said it was on­ly af­ter the Op­po­si­tion raised ques­tions about the de­ci­sion that Sobers ad­dressed the mat­ter.

Browne crit­i­cised sev­er­al of Sobers’ ex­pla­na­tions, be­gin­ning with the min­is­ter’s claim that the Op­po­si­tion had failed to pro­vide con­text sur­round­ing the vote.

Sobers had ar­gued on Wednes­day that crit­ics ig­nored pro­ce­dur­al con­cerns sur­round­ing the vote and fo­cused on­ly on the out­come. Browne re­ject­ed that po­si­tion.

“The UNC and Sobers, in fact, failed to re­spond to me­dia ques­tions and did not present any con­text at all to the na­tion­al and re­gion­al com­mu­ni­ty, and he seems to be ask­ing for the Op­po­si­tion to read his mind and do his job for him. He can­not be se­ri­ous,” Browne said.

He al­so dis­missed Sobers’ con­tention that mem­ber states had in­suf­fi­cient time to con­sult be­fore the vote.

Ac­cord­ing to Browne, diplo­mats rou­tine­ly com­mu­ni­cate with their gov­ern­ments be­fore ma­jor votes, in­clud­ing on week­ends.

“The truth is that gov­ern­ments do not ‘con­sult their cap­i­tals’; diplo­mats con­sult their gov­ern­ments or cap­i­tals and rou­tine­ly do so via a sim­ple phone call which can take place on the week­end,” he said.

Browne ar­gued that if there was suf­fi­cient time to in­struct Trinidad and To­ba­go’s diplo­mats to vote against Türk’s reap­point­ment, then time con­straints could not have been the de­cid­ing fac­tor.

He al­so crit­i­cised Sobers’ ar­gu­ment that the in­com­ing Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al should have had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to weigh in on the ap­point­ment of the High Com­mis­sion­er.

“One hun­dred and forty-four UN mem­ber states clear­ly see no mer­it in that ex­cuse. No oth­er Cari­com state found any mer­it in such a view,” Browne said.

He ac­cused Sobers of re­peat­ing ar­gu­ments used by coun­tries op­posed to Türk be­cause of the High Com­mis­sion­er’s out­spo­ken po­si­tions on glob­al hu­man rights is­sues.

Browne said the vote re­flect­ed a broad­er shift in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s for­eign pol­i­cy un­der the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He not­ed that Türk had re­peat­ed­ly con­demned al­leged hu­man rights abus­es around the world, in­clud­ing the hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in Gaza.

He claimed the Gov­ern­ment had “stu­dious­ly avoid­ed con­dem­na­tion of the geno­cide in Gaza” and re­mained silent on the is­sue dur­ing the 2025 Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

Browne al­so crit­i­cised Sobers’ pub­lic sup­port for Unit­ed States and Is­raeli mil­i­tary ac­tion against Iran and ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of sup­port­ing ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings car­ried out by US au­thor­i­ties at sea, ac­tions he said Türk had crit­i­cised as vi­o­la­tions of in­ter­na­tion­al law.

“Yet Sobers has the temer­i­ty to claim that his bizarre vote last week was based on con­cerns about the ap­point­ment process, not the of­fi­cial’s per­for­mance,” Browne said.

He fur­ther ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment had demon­strat­ed a pat­tern of shift­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s tra­di­tion­al for­eign pol­i­cy po­si­tions, point­ing to what he de­scribed as changes in vot­ing be­hav­iour at the Unit­ed Na­tions, in­clud­ing ab­sten­tions on votes con­cern­ing Cu­ba and the coun­try’s ab­sence from a vote on cli­mate-re­lat­ed is­sues.

“All that Sobers has done with those half-baked at­tempt­ed ex­pla­na­tions is to con­firm that he is a vas­sal who can­not ac­count for his ‘in­struc­tions’,” Browne said.

Sobers has main­tained that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s vote was based sole­ly on pro­ce­dur­al con­cerns sur­round­ing the tim­ing and han­dling of Türk’s reap­point­ment. He has in­sist­ed that the de­ci­sion was un­re­lat­ed to the High Com­mis­sion­er’s record or Trinidad and To­ba­go’s long­stand­ing sup­port for a two-state so­lu­tion to the Is­rael-Pales­tine con­flict.

The Caribbean Cen­tre for Hu­man Rights (CCHR) has al­so com­ment­ed on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s vote, ac­knowl­edg­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s ex­pla­na­tion while ex­press­ing con­fi­dence in the coun­try’s con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to hu­man rights.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the or­gan­i­sa­tion said it had not­ed both the de­ci­sion to vote against ex­tend­ing Türk’s tenure and the ex­pla­na­tion that the po­si­tion “was guid­ed by con­cerns re­gard­ing the ap­point­ment process.”

The CCHR stressed that Trinidad and To­ba­go has a “long­stand­ing and well-es­tab­lished com­mit­ment to the pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of hu­man rights”, not­ing that the coun­try re­mains par­ty to sev­er­al core in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights con­ven­tions.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion, the or­gan­i­sa­tion said it “recog­nis­es the sov­er­eign right of every State to de­ter­mine its po­si­tion with­in the Unit­ed Na­tions sys­tem.”

The CCHR added that it trust­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go would con­tin­ue to up­hold its record of ad­vanc­ing a so­ci­ety in which hu­man rights re­main a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty.