Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to ad­dress the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly around 6 pm to­day, be­gin­ning what is ex­pect­ed to be a packed diplo­mat­ic sched­ule in New York be­fore re­turn­ing home for Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions on Thurs­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar will de­liv­er Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al state­ment on the open­ing day of the Gen­er­al De­bate of the 81st Ses­sion of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, which runs from to­day un­til Sat­ur­day be­fore con­clud­ing on Mon­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar left Trinidad and To­ba­go on Sun­day night, with Jear­lean John ap­point­ed to act as Prime Min­is­ter in her ab­sence.

She is ac­com­pa­nied by For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Nicholas Mor­ris and Head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Natasha Bar­row.

Her ap­pear­ance at the UN comes as Trinidad and To­ba­go pre­pares to as­sume a non-per­ma­nent seat on the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil from Jan­u­ary 2027.

Trinidad and To­ba­go was elect­ed to the Coun­cil ear­li­er this year for the 2027-2028 term.

The Prime Min­is­ter had ini­tial­ly been sched­uled to ad­dress the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly on Sat­ur­day but told re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment last Wednes­day that her plans were be­ing ad­just­ed be­cause she did not want to miss Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions and had sev­er­al bi­lat­er­al en­gage­ments to con­duct.

“I have a chal­lenge. As you know, we are join­ing the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and there­fore we have a cer­tain sta­tus there,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“Be­cause of Re­pub­lic Day, which I don’t want to miss, I was sched­uled to speak at the Gen­er­al Coun­cil on Sat­ur­day, which is the day af­ter.”

She said her sched­ule al­so in­clud­ed “bi­lat­er­al meet­ings with sev­er­al coun­tries of the world.”

Among those is a planned meet­ing with Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez, which Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed last Wednes­day had been fi­nalised.

“That arrange­ment has been fi­nalised. We are sched­uled to meet lat­er in the week,” she said.

With Per­sad-Bisses­sar sched­uled to speak to­day and Venezuela ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er its na­tion­al state­ment to­mor­row, the tim­ing could pro­vide a win­dow for the two lead­ers to meet be­fore the Prime Min­is­ter re­turns to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Guardian Me­dia asked Per­sad-Bisses­sar, both on Sun­day and yes­ter­day, when the meet­ing with Ro­dríguez would take place and what would be on the agen­da, but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time.

Ro­dríguez is al­ready in New York for the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly and an­nounced her ar­rival in a so­cial me­dia post.

“We ar­rive in New York with the re­solve and hope of a peo­ple who be­lieve in the com­ing to­geth­er and uni­ty of na­tions,” Ro­dríguez said.

“Venezuela will be present at the 81st UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly to make its voice heard and de­fend its prin­ci­ples, with a work agen­da based on re­spect, co­op­er­a­tion and un­der­stand­ing.”

She added, “We are a coun­try com­mit­ted to peace, di­a­logue and forg­ing shared paths.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­dress to­day will al­so be watched for in­di­ca­tions of how her Gov­ern­ment in­tends to po­si­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go in­ter­na­tion­al­ly as the coun­try pre­pares to take its place on the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

At last year’s 80th UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­liv­ered a fiery and un­con­ven­tion­al na­tion­al state­ment in which she ex­plic­it­ly re­ject­ed the de­scrip­tion of the Caribbean as a “zone of peace.”

She ar­gued that blood­thirsty transna­tion­al car­tels had plunged the re­gion in­to a “war with­out bor­ders” and ad­vo­cat­ed a “fight fire with fire” re­sponse, in­clud­ing for­eign mil­i­tary sup­port to con­front or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works.

Browne wants PM to state po­si­tion on ICC

Mean­while, for­mer for­eign and Cari­com af­fairs min­is­ter and cur­rent Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne wants Per­sad-Bisses­sar to use to­day’s ad­dress to clear­ly state whether Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC).

The is­sue comes against a long­stand­ing and com­pli­cat­ed re­la­tion­ship be­tween Wash­ing­ton and the ICC.

That re­la­tion­ship has hard­ened un­der the cur­rent US ad­min­is­tra­tion.

In Feb­ru­ary 2025, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is­sued an ex­ec­u­tive or­der pro­vid­ing for sanc­tions against ICC of­fi­cials, and sanc­tions were sub­se­quent­ly im­posed on the Court’s pros­e­cu­tor and sev­er­al judges and oth­er of­fi­cials. The ICC says four judges were sanc­tioned in June 2025, with four ad­di­tion­al of­fi­cials sanc­tioned that Au­gust.

The mea­sures marked a re­ver­sal from the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion, which in 2021 lift­ed sanc­tions im­posed dur­ing Trump’s first term while main­tain­ing US ob­jec­tions to as­pects of the ICC’s ju­ris­dic­tion.

It is against that back­drop that Browne is chal­leng­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar to make T&T’s po­si­tion clear.

“Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the cur­rent UNC regime have been con­spic­u­ous­ly silent on con­tem­po­rary is­sues re­lat­ed to the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court,” Browne said.

He said that up to April 2025, suc­ces­sive Trinidad and To­ba­go ad­min­is­tra­tions had giv­en “staunch and pub­lic sup­port” to the Court and its work in pur­su­ing peo­ple ac­cused of geno­cide, crimes against hu­man­i­ty, war crimes and crimes of ag­gres­sion.

Browne said the cur­rent pres­sure fac­ing the ICC makes it im­por­tant for Trinidad and To­ba­go to state where it stands.

“Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar can­not con­tin­ue to evade me­dia and pub­lic scruti­ny on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion with re­gard to our coun­try’s tra­di­tion­al sup­port for the work of the ICC,” he said.

“She must demon­strate the courage and trans­paren­cy to ei­ther pub­licly sup­port the ICC at the UN­GA as her pre­de­ces­sors have done, or to an­nounce and jus­ti­fy a change of po­si­tion.”

Browne al­so point­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­toric con­nec­tion to the es­tab­lish­ment of the ICC through for­mer prime min­is­ter and pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son, who was a lead­ing ad­vo­cate for the cre­ation of a per­ma­nent in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal court.

He al­so high­light­ed the pres­ence of Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al Jus­tice Althea Alex­is-Wind­sor on the ICC bench.

Browne went fur­ther, call­ing on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ad­dress Gaza, Iran, Cu­ba and what he de­scribed as the im­por­tance of Cari­com sol­i­dar­i­ty.