DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty has not con­firmed whether an emer­gency meet­ing of Heads of Gov­ern­ment, con­vened by Cari­com chair and St Kitts and Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Ter­rance Drew, went ahead as sched­uled yes­ter­day, amid an es­ca­lat­ing dis­pute over the reap­point­ment of Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett.

The meet­ing was called to ad­dress Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ob­jec­tion to the de­ci­sion which was tak­en dur­ing the Cari­com re­treat at the 50th Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in Feb­ru­ary.

This coun­try was not rep­re­sent­ed at the re­treat as Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­turned home for Cab­i­net and Par­lia­men­tary busi­ness.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, who head­ed the coun­try’s del­e­ga­tion in her ab­sence, did not at­tend un­der cir­cum­stances that have since be­come a point of con­tention.

Sobers said he was “dis­in­vit­ed,” along with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and the Ba­hamas, af­ter their prime min­is­ters re­turned to their home coun­tries.

How­ev­er, in cor­re­spon­dence ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Drew in­di­cat­ed that Sobers de­clined an in­vi­ta­tion to trav­el to Nevis for the re­treat, cit­ing con­cerns about sea­sick­ness — a re­mark Sobers lat­er said was made in jest. Sobers al­so shared a screen­shot of a What­sApp ex­change with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at in­di­cat­ing that the re­treat would be at­tend­ed by Heads of Gov­ern­ment on­ly.

An emer­gency meet­ing was sub­se­quent­ly sched­uled to ad­dress the is­sue. How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s am­bas­sador to Cari­com, Ralph Maraj, did not at­tend the ses­sion, which was due to be­gin at 2 pm, while both the Prime Min­is­ter and the For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter were in Par­lia­ment from around 1 pm.

Re­peat­ed at­tempts to con­firm whether the meet­ing took place or was post­poned were un­suc­cess­ful.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the Cari­com chair, of­fi­cials in his of­fice and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at but did not re­ceive a re­sponse.

Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali was al­so not in at­ten­dance. He in­stead par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce’s An­nu­al Busi­ness Meet­ing and Out­look 2026/2027 at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain, where he de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress yes­ter­day.

Asked about his ab­sence, Ali said rep­re­sen­ta­tion at such meet­ings could be han­dled by his for­eign af­fairs min­istry and main­tained that Guyana’s po­si­tion on the is­sue re­mains un­changed.

“My agen­da was this ac­tiv­i­ty here. So I guess at the end of any meet­ing I’ll be briefed. But my po­si­tion would not change. I mean, I’ve ex­am­ined the is­sue, and we made a con­scious de­ci­sion on the re­new­al of the term, and we are hap­py with our de­ci­sion.”

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions about re­ports that Trinidad and To­ba­go, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and the Ba­hamas had been “dis­in­vit­ed” from the re­treat where the de­ci­sion on Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment was tak­en, Ali said he could not speak to the mat­ter be­yond Guyana’s role, re­it­er­at­ing that his coun­try sup­port­ed the de­ci­sion.

Ali al­so de­clined to char­ac­terise the sit­u­a­tion as a dis­pute, but em­pha­sised the need for ma­tu­ri­ty among mem­ber states and re­spect for dif­fer­ing po­si­tions.

He not­ed that the re­gion­al bloc has nav­i­gat­ed ma­jor chal­lenges in re­cent years, in­clud­ing the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, glob­al sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters.

“I don’t want to say it’s a Cari­com and Trinidad and To­ba­go tiff. We have to be ma­ture. Trinidad has ex­pressed a view. I think that it is im­por­tant for all of us to recog­nise the im­por­tance of Cari­com and to recog­nise the im­por­tance of every coun­try hav­ing the free­dom to ex­press their view and once those views are ex­pressed and they’re ven­ti­lat­ed, the next step is to en­sure that Cari­com it­self con­tin­ues as that body that brings us clos­er to­geth­er that al­lows us to lever­age the op­por­tu­ni­ties among each oth­er and to build a stronger union. That’s my pri­or­i­ty.”

On re­gion­al ten­sions in­volv­ing Venezuela, Ali said he re­mains open to en­gage­ment with any leader, while reaf­firm­ing Guyana’s po­si­tion on the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion and warn­ing against threats to its sov­er­eign­ty. He al­so thanked Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her sup­port.

“I’m open to meet any leader glob­al­ly, any leader in this re­gion. As a re­spon­si­ble leader, we know that the de­vel­op­ment of our coun­tries, the de­vel­op­ment of our peo­ple, they’re in­te­grat­ed, and we stand firm­ly on the side of democ­ra­cy, the rule of law. We don’t take light­ly any threat to the sov­er­eign­ty of Guyana, and that is why I want to al­so thank Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la for her very strong words, her de­ci­sive po­si­tion on Guyana, on our sov­er­eign­ty and our ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty. We val­ue that deeply. We val­ue our friend­ship with Trinidad and To­ba­go. We see Trinidad as a broth­er­ly or sis­ter­ly coun­try and part of that Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty, and we val­ue that great­ly.”