Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­firmed that she will trav­el to Bas­seterre, St Kitts and Nevis, on Mon­day evening to at­tend the 50th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com)—mark­ing her first face-to-face en­gage­ment with re­gion­al lead­ers since as­sum­ing of­fice for a sec­ond term.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not at­tend the 49th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing in Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica, in Ju­ly last year, when Trinidad and To­ba­go was in­stead rep­re­sent­ed by For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, Act­ing Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Ran­dall Karim, Am­bas­sador to Cari­com Ralph Maraj, and Di­rec­tor of Cari­com and Caribbean Af­fairs Ayesha Whar­ton.

While her Gov­ern­ment has em­pha­sised strength­en­ing ties be­yond the Caribbean, Per­sad-Bisses­sar has stressed that Trinidad and To­ba­go has no plans to with­draw from the re­gion­al bloc. Fol­low­ing a Jan­u­ary 30 meet­ing with Cari­com Chair­man Dr Ter­rance Drew in Port-of-Spain, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the coun­try re­mains com­mit­ted to the or­gan­i­sa­tion and re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go at­tach­es great im­por­tance to our coun­try’s long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ship with Cari­com,” she wrote in a state­ment on so­cial me­dia, not­ing that pro­duc­tive dis­cus­sions were held and af­firm­ing sup­port for re­gion­al uni­ty while recog­nis­ing the need for trans­for­ma­tion with­in the bloc.

Her up­com­ing vis­it will al­so be her first di­rect en­gage­ment with Cari­com lead­ers since she pub­licly crit­i­cised the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s stance on Venezuela. In De­cem­ber, she de­scribed the bloc’s per­ceived align­ment with the gov­ern­ment of Nicolás Maduro as sup­port­ing dic­ta­tor­ship and drug traf­fick­ing, say­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go would not par­tic­i­pate. Some re­gion­al lead­ers re­spond­ed by reaf­firm­ing the im­por­tance of di­a­logue and col­lab­o­ra­tion with­in Cari­com.

Ja­maica’s For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Kam­i­na John­son Smith sought to ease ten­sions af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks, em­pha­sis­ing in Jan­u­ary that dis­agree­ments with­in Cari­com are man­age­able and that com­mu­ni­ca­tion at the high­est po­lit­i­cal lev­el re­mains in­tact.

Speak­ing at the CAF In­ter­na­tion­al Eco­nom­ic Fo­rum in Pana­ma City, John­son Smith said, “As in any fam­i­ly, you will have dis­agree­ments. And the thing about fam­i­ly is that you re­tain the abil­i­ty to talk.” She not­ed that re­la­tions be­tween Kingston and Port of Spain re­main strong and that past bor­der is­sues have since been ad­dressed.

“As we have solved those is­sues, we try to build and strength­en at all times,” she said, adding that both lead­ers re­main ac­ces­si­ble to one an­oth­er.

Cari­com lead­ers are ex­pect­ed to dis­cuss a wide range of re­gion­al pri­or­i­ties at the 50th meet­ing, in­clud­ing eco­nom­ic in­te­gra­tion, se­cu­ri­ty, cli­mate re­silience and the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME).

Ef­forts to se­cure fur­ther com­ment from the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice on her Cari­com agen­da were un­suc­cess­ful at the time of pub­li­ca­tion.