Sto­ries by Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar should en­ter Cari­com’s 50th con­fer­ence in St Kitts to­mor­row as a re­gion­al stateswoman - not as a com­bat­ant - and use the lan­guage of uni­ty, says for­mer For­eign Af­fairs min­is­ter Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan.

“... Go to St Kitts not to win an ar­gu­ment, but to strength­en the re­gion. His­to­ry re­mem­bers bridge-builders, not head­line fight­ers,” Ram­bachan added yes­ter­day, ahead of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­par­ture to­day to her first Cari­com con­fer­ence.

The PM, who en­tered of­fice in April 2025, did not at­tend Cari­com’s Ju­ly 2025 con­fer­ence.

Gov­ern­ment’s team leav­ing at noon in­cludes For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, Nicholas Mor­ris (For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­istry Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter) and Cari­com Am­bas­sador Ralph Maraj.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar will de­liv­er re­marks at the con­fer­ence’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny to­mor­row at the Mar­riot in Frigate Bay.

Maraj didn’t com­ment on T&T’s plans, nor did Sobers re­ply to queries on the del­e­ga­tion’s thrust, es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s sharp re­marks re­gard­ing Cari­com fol­low­ing re­cent US/Venezuela is­sues in the re­gion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar didn’t re­ply to emailed queries on what her open­ing re­marks to Cari­com may in­volve, or if she would have talks with US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio - tipped to vis­it St Kitts dur­ing the con­fer­ence - on any­thing, in­clud­ing fur­ther­ing T&T, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty, or what mes­sage Ru­bio may bring lead­ers if he at­tends the meet­ing. Ram­bachan, who was min­is­ter from 2010-12 in Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment, said, “The PM should bal­ance diplo­ma­cy, re­gion­al lead­er­ship,and na­tion­al in­ter­est. Since this in­volves sen­si­tive re­gion­al pol­i­tics with­in the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty, the tone must be states­man­like, not de­fen­sive. She should re­mind that Cari­com is built on con­sen­sus, qui­et diplo­ma­cy and mu­tu­al re­spect.”

Ram­bachan said he ex­pect­ed the PM to utilise the lan­guage of uni­ty in her ad­dress, reaf­firm T&T’s role as an an­chor econ­o­my and to use pri­vate bi­lat­er­al meet­ings strate­gi­cal­ly, “as Cari­com cul­ture val­ues be­hind-the-scenes res­o­lu­tion over pub­lic con­fronta­tion.”

He said he ex­pect­ed she would piv­ot fo­cus to com­mon chal­lenges, in­clud­ing crime and food se­cu­ri­ty, of­fer con­crete re­gion­al ini­tia­tives and T&T’s ex­per­tise and be re­spect­ful to small­er states.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said Per­sad-Bisses­sar will be at­tend­ing her first Cari­com con­fer­ence as “a leader who’s val­i­dat­ed her lead­er­ship since her tenure be­gan, es­pe­cial­ly where she has in­creased T&T’s ties with the US.”

At to­mor­row’s con­fer­ence launch, Cari­com chair­man, St Kitts Prime Min­is­ter Ter­rence Drew, will de­liv­er the fea­ture ad­dress. Oth­er lead­ers who have re­cent­ly en­tered Cari­com via elec­tion or re-elec­tion are al­so ex­pect­ed to speak.

St Kitts re­ports have tipped US Sec­re­tary of State Ru­bio to vis­it for half-day dur­ing the Cari­com event and meet and speak with Cari­com lead­ers.

Cari­com didn’t con­firm the vis­it yes­ter­day, but there has been height­ened ar­rivals of US of­fi­cials and mil­i­tary in St Kitts since last Fri­day and in­ten­si­fied diplo­mat­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and prepa­ra­tions.

Ru­bio’s ex­pect­ed vis­it has been de­scribed as a bid to “re­set re­la­tions” with lead­ers fol­low­ing re­cent con­cerns, in­clud­ing on the US’s mil­i­tary pres­ence in the re­gion - which is a zone of peace - and its de­struc­tion of al­leged drug boats per­ceived as ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings.

The vis­it is ex­pect­ed to be geared to­wards strength­en­ing re­gion­al part­ner­ships where the US po­si­tion re­gard­ing Cu­ba is con­cerned and coun­ter­ing Chi­na’s ex­pand­ing ties with re­gion­al states.

St Kitts of­fi­cials said if Ru­bio comes, it could change the con­fer­ence from re­gion­al fo­cus point to in­ter­na­tion­al diplo­mat­ic cross­roads, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter Cari­com’s calls for more US en­gage­ment on is­sues and re­cent mat­ters caus­ing ten­sions.

Op­po­si­tion spokesman on for­eign and re­gion­al is­sues, Dr Amery Browne, didn’t re­ply to ques­tions on the PM’s at­ten­dance or Ru­bio’s vis­it. T&T’s del­e­ga­tion is ex­pect­ed back on Thurs­day, while the Cari­com con­fer­ence ends Fri­day.