Gail Alexan­der

De­spite the neg­a­tive wake Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar left be­hind at Cari­com’s 50th con­fer­ence in St Kitts, her replies to Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ques­tions in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day were her­ald­ed by desk pound­ing ap­proval from her team.

One query con­cerned Cari­com—the ar­rest war­rant treaty. There are many queries for the PM fol­low­ing her re­turn from the re­gion­al round­table and Tues­day’s con­tro­ver­sial per­for­mance be­fore Cari­com lead­ers. The Prime Min­is­ter, at her first Cari­com meet­ing, made her mark. Sim­i­lar to what’s been stamped on T&T since she took of­fice: in­deli­ble.

Her ad­dress, with the po­ten­tial to splin­ter the re­gion­al bloc, could not have come at a worse time. Like oth­ers be­ing test­ed by the US ad­min­is­tra­tion, the uni­ty call with­in Cari­com was telegraphed at Tues­day’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny from start to fin­ish in word and song.

Newest Cari­com mem­ber, St Vin­cent/Grenadines PM God­win Fri­day, was prophet­ic in his ad­dress—ahead of Per­sad-Bisses­sar—speak­ing Cari­com’s truth to its pow­er bro­kers, “Now more than ever we’re be­ing test­ed … chal­lenged from in­side and out…”

Even be­fore Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s break­out ad­dress (lit­er­al­ly so mes­saged), Cari­com’s theme of unit­ed ac­tion was pitched to big­ger au­di­ences ahead of their Wednes­day meet­ing with US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio.

It took guts for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to de­liv­er her un­fil­tered opin­ion of Cari­com and by ex­ten­sion col­leagues. Time and place were in­op­por­tune for such sub­ject mat­ter. But re­leas­ing any “sa­cred cows,” she dealt with lead­ers in the sig­na­ture style of her T&T plat­forms. Where states­man­ship isn’t part of her usu­al “buss head” push.

While her pro-US and Cu­ba re­it­er­a­tions set the stage for Ru­bio’s ar­rival, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s em­brace of the US on se­cu­ri­ty, say­ing T&T crime “is so bad I can­not de­pend on just my mil­i­tary and my pro­tec­tive ser­vices,” con­tra­dict­ed re­cent Gov­ern­ment boasts of achiev­ing the low­est mur­der rate, al­so throw­ing T&T se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies’ ca­pa­bil­i­ty un­der the “bus.”

While Per­sad-Bisses­sar was fol­lowed by St Kitts songstress Kari­cia Wil­let’s ren­di­tion, We is We, lead­ers’ ex­pres­sions, some luke­warm ap­plause, none by oth­ers and sub­se­quent com­ments showed their opin­ion of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s on­slaught. At the cen­tre of Tues­day’s group pho­to pri­or to her ad­dress, the PM was seen in Wednes­day’s group pho­to (with Ru­bio) at right out­er­most edge, space be­tween her and the group, pos­tured away from oth­ers.

Var­i­ous re­views reached T&T. “Ap­palling.” “Dis­grace­ful.” “In­ap­pro­pri­ate de­struc­tive speech.” “Sad for T&T af­ter its sig­nif­i­cant Cari­com role.”

Lead­ers, from Grena­da PM Dick­on Mitchell to An­tigua/Bar­bu­da’s Gas­ton Browne, Bar­ba­dos’ Mot­t­ley, Do­mini­ca’s Roo­sevelt Sker­rit and St Lu­cia’s Phillip J Pierre, ini­tial­ly weighed in neg­a­tive­ly on the PM’s re­marks—Mitchell not­ing T&T needs Cari­com more than the Less­er An­tilles needs T&T.

Yes­ter­day, An­tigua’s Browne—when asked about pos­si­ble back­lash—told this col­umn, “No wor­ries, we’re one Caribbean fam­i­ly. Amends will be made. We shall move for­ward as one.”

Lead­ers’ press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day—asked about PM’s state­ments—al­so em­pha­sised the re­gion and meet­ing’s uni­ty, deny­ing frag­men­ta­tion. Fol­low­ing the PM’s re­fusal of full free Cari­com move­ment and com­plaints about mi­gra­tion af­fect­ing T&T, re­gion­al re­sponse is ahead on Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s mar­ket­ing of UWI’s Debe Cam­pus and Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal.

Af­ter Ru­bio’s state­ment—de­scribed by sev­er­al as “en­cour­ag­ing”—lead­ers’ clos­ing state­ment on Cub main­tained its hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance call and puts the ball in the US’ court.

Coun­ter­ing the neg­a­tive Cari­com im­age was Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s news of par­tic­i­pa­tion at next Sat­ur­day’s meet­ing with US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump re­gard­ing the Shields of Amer­i­ca se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tive with six Latin Amer­i­can lead­ers and Guyana’s Pres­i­dent. The at­ten­dance of the six US-aligned lead­ers at the meet­ing was re­port­ed in the Cos­ta Ri­ca me­dia since Feb­ru­ary 10.

Af­ter the US’s in­ter­na­tion­al is­sues, the Shield meet­ing’s per­ceived as co­a­lesc­ing a hemi­spher­ic bloc of “friend­lies” ahead of Trump’s up­com­ing meet­ing with Chi­na strong­man Xi Jin­ping. The noon event at the Trump Na­tion­al Do­ral Mi­a­mi ho­tel fol­lows the con­tro­ver­sial 2019 cau­cus to which Trump in­vit­ed then-lead­ers of Ja­maica, St Lu­cia, Ba­hamas and Haiti at his Flori­da home, where Venezuela’s prob­lems then were among dis­cus­sions.

With T&T hitched to the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion—whose mid-term elec­tion chances are ques­tion­able fol­low­ing Amer­i­cans’ 60 per cent dis­ap­proval rat­ing—it’s ahead how Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pands links with that ad­min­is­tra­tion while it’s strong; and opens oth­ers with LA lead­ers.