This col­umn was writ­ten be­fore Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­dress to the UN. Last Tues­day, she said: “We can’t do the same things we have been do­ing for 20 years and ex­pect it to change. So this is a game-chang­er in a sense, hav­ing help from oth­ers who are larg­er than we are. They have the re­sources. We don’t have the re­sources. We have not had them for the past umpteen years, where the crime has run away. We have to do things dif­fer­ent­ly. So to my part­ners, broth­ers, sis­ters, cousins in the Cari­com, we love them. We are com­mit­ted to the Cari­com. So noth­ing I am say­ing is against the Cari­com.” (News­day, Sep­tem­ber 24, 2025).

On which side of his­to­ry will she stand? This is not the first time that Cari­com has been di­vid­ed over in­ter­na­tion­al is­sues since its in­cep­tion in Ju­ly 1973.

On De­cem­ber 18, 1975, Prime Min­is­ter Er­ic Williams made a min­is­te­r­i­al state­ment dur­ing the bud­get de­bate.

He said, “Mr Speak­er, I am most grate­ful to you for the op­por­tu­ni­ty you have now giv­en me here to make a state­ment of ur­gent pub­lic im­por­tance on be­half of the Cab­i­net, which has just held pri­vate con­sul­ta­tions among mem­bers present and has had tele­phone con­fir­ma­tion from the mem­bers who, for one rea­son or an­oth­er, are not here to­day.

“The state­ment is as fol­lows. A re­quest has been made by the Cuban Gov­ern­ment through its civ­il avi­a­tion au­thor­i­ties to the Di­rec­tor of Civ­il Avi­a­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go seek­ing per­mis­sion to land Cuban Army planes at Pi­ar­co for re­fu­elling. These planes will be trans­port­ing Cuban troops to An­go­la.

“Cab­i­net has re­fused the re­quest of the Cuban Gov­ern­ment and has made it clear that Trinidad and To­ba­go will not, un­der any cir­cum­stances, ei­ther in­ter­vene in An­go­la’s af­fairs or con­tribute, how­ev­er in­di­rect­ly, to the in­ter­ven­tion of any oth­er coun­try. The Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion has been passed to the Di­rec­tor of Civ­il Avi­a­tion for trans­mis­sion to the Cuban Gov­ern­ment.” (Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, 18th De­cem­ber, 1975, pp 295–296).

At the time, Cu­ba was fight­ing on the side of the Pop­u­lar Move­ment for the Lib­er­a­tion of An­go­la (MPLA). The apartheid South African regime backed the Na­tion­al Union for the To­tal In­de­pen­dence of An­go­la (UNI­TA), while the Na­tion­al Lib­er­a­tion Front of An­go­la (FN­LA) was an­oth­er con­tes­tant. Por­tu­gal grant­ed in­de­pen­dence to An­go­la in No­vem­ber 1975.

Cari­com was di­vid­ed on this is­sue. Ac­cord­ing to Wik­ileaks, a ca­ble clas­si­fied “Se­cret” dat­ed No­vem­ber 20, 1975, from the State De­part­ment to the US Em­bassy in Bar­ba­dos said, “1. We have in­for­ma­tion that Cu­ba has been us­ing Bar­ba­dos as a re­fu­elling stop for planes prob­a­bly car­ry­ing Cuban troops and arms ul­ti­mate­ly des­tined for An­go­la. This ap­par­ent use of Bar­ba­di­an fa­cil­i­ties is like­ly to con­tin­ue, giv­en the con­tin­u­ing re­quire­ments the Cubans face in their ef­fort to sup­port the MPLA.

2. You should seek ear­li­est pos­si­ble ap­point­ment with Bar­row to raise this mat­ter. You should draw on STATE 266239 (be­ing re­peat­ed to you) in de­scrib­ing Cuban in­ter­fer­ence in An­golan af­fairs. Stress­ing that we de­plore this fla­grant in­ter­ven­tion, you should urge Bar­row to pro­hib­it fur­ther use of Bar­ba­di­an fa­cil­i­ties, point­ing out that fa­cil­i­tat­ing Cuban in­ter­ven­tion risks as­so­ci­at­ing Bar­ba­dos with that in­ter­ven­tion … Kissinger.” (1975STATE274684).

Bar­ba­dos with­drew its per­mis­sion on De­cem­ber 17. On De­cem­ber 18, Cu­ba ap­proached Trinidad and To­ba­go, and Williams said no. Cu­ba then ap­proached Guyana. A Wik­ileaks con­fi­den­tial ca­ble dat­ed Jan­u­ary 8, 1976, from the State De­part­ment to US Em­bassies in George­town and Cara­cas stat­ed:

“… 2. George­town 2228 pro­vides lat­est de­vel­op­ments on Cuban flights tran­sit­ing Guyana. On­ly two Cuban flights tran­sit­ed Guyana and Timehri has not been used by CUBANA air­craft en route to Africa since De­cem­ber 22.

3. CUBANA flights de­part­ed Ha­vana for Guinea-Bis­sau with re­fu­el­ing stops at San­ta Maria, Azores on De­cem­ber 20, 23, 26, and 29 …

4. A word of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for Gov co­op­er­a­tion is ap­pro­pri­ate … Kissinger.” (1976STATE004124)

Mean­while, the rul­ing PNP in Ja­maica, led by Michael Man­ley, sup­port­ed the MPLA as the le­git­i­mate rulers of An­go­la and favoured Cuban mil­i­tary aid to the MPLA. Cari­com was di­vid­ed.

An­oth­er Cari­com flash­point oc­curred in Oc­to­ber 1983, when the Peo­ple’s Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Gov­ern­ment (PRG) in Grena­da im­plod­ed. Bernard Coard and Gen­er­al Hud­son Austin at­tacked PM Mau­rice Bish­op, who, along with two as­so­ciates, was ex­e­cut­ed by fir­ing squad. The OECS, led by PM Eu­ge­nia Charles of Do­mini­ca, re­quest­ed in­ter­ven­tion by the Rea­gan Ad­min­is­tra­tion. Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica sup­port­ed her. Cari­com was split. T&T did not sup­port this re­quest.

To­day, T&T stands at an­oth­er cross­roads of his­to­ry. Will sup­port­ing the as­sis­tance of US mil­i­tary as­sets in the south­ern Caribbean help the coun­try de­feat the drug car­tels? If the Prime Min­is­ter suc­ceeds, his­to­ry will ab­solve her.

Prof Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI.