RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­fend­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion on Cu­ba, re­it­er­at­ing the coun­try can­not de­mand democ­ra­cy and free and fair elec­tions for its own cit­i­zens while re­main­ing silent when those free­doms are de­nied to peo­ple in neigh­bour­ing na­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the state­ment as she ad­dressed diplo­mats at the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs’ Di­vali with the Diplo­mats func­tion on Thurs­day night, where she al­so high­light­ed her Gov­ern­ment’s en­gage­ment with the Unit­ed States and Venezuela, par­tic­u­lar­ly in ad­vanc­ing cross-bor­der en­er­gy de­vel­op­ment and se­cur­ing li­cences from the US Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC).

Fac­ing crit­i­cism af­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go vot­ed with the US against a Unit­ed Na­tions res­o­lu­tion call­ing for an end to the US em­bar­go on Cu­ba, the Prime Min­is­ter de­fend­ed the coun­try’s po­si­tion, say­ing its for­eign pol­i­cy must be guid­ed by de­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues, hu­man dig­ni­ty and na­tion­al in­ter­ests.

“I stand firm­ly with re­gard to the vote at the UN re­gard­ing Cu­ba. I stand for free­dom and democ­ra­cy, and in Cu­ba, the peo­ple de­serve a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­ern­ment. The peo­ple in Cu­ba are suf­fer­ing. They are our neigh­bours and friends. We can­not want to live in light at home and re­main in si­lence when oth­ers live in the shad­ows of op­pres­sion and ex­ploita­tion,” she said.

She not­ed that T&T will not sup­port a mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship in Cu­ba when the Cuban cit­i­zens are suf­fer­ing.

On en­er­gy, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said en­gage­ment with the US and Venezuela had helped se­cure rel­e­vant OFAC li­cences and ad­vance cross-bor­der en­er­gy de­vel­op­ment, with po­ten­tial ben­e­fits for en­er­gy sup­plies, in­vest­ment and em­ploy­ment.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment was al­so pur­su­ing new mar­kets through MER­CO­SUR and wider en­gage­ment with South Amer­i­ca, while part­ner­ships in the Mid­dle East and a planned diplo­mat­ic mis­sion in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates were ex­pect­ed to ex­pand the coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al reach.

She dis­closed that the Gov­ern­ment had se­cured grant fund­ing ex­ceed­ing $150 mil­lion.

“These bridges to op­por­tu­ni­ty will im­prove our peo­ple’s lives,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so linked the coun­try’s for­eign pol­i­cy to its se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments, point­ing to co­op­er­a­tion with the US through the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as and the Counter Car­tel Coali­tion.

She said the ini­tia­tives were in­tend­ed to strength­en se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion, while the Gov­ern­ment had al­so pressed for stronger gov­er­nance and col­lec­tive ac­tion with­in Cari­com.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so high­light­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s elec­tion to the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil for the 2027–2028 term, say­ing the coun­try re­ceived 181 votes, rep­re­sent­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 95 per cent of votes cast.

The coun­try will be­gin its first term on the coun­cil since 1985–1986 in Jan­u­ary.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar thanked the coun­tries which sup­port­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s can­di­da­cy, say­ing the elec­tion car­ried an oblig­a­tion to ex­er­cise sound judg­ment on is­sues af­fect­ing coun­tries threat­ened by con­flict and vul­ner­a­ble small states.