DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

For­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) vice chair­man Dr Amery Browne has warned Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar against what he de­scribed as “slo­ga­neer­ing” in her for­eign pol­i­cy, rais­ing con­cerns about her rhetoric on re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs.

Browne crit­i­cised Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­peat­ed calls to put Trinidad and To­ba­go first, ar­gu­ing that such rhetoric—which re­sem­bles US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s Make Amer­i­ca Great Again cam­paign—risked un­der­min­ing the coun­try’s role in Cari­com and re­la­tions with states across the West­ern Hemi­sphere, par­tic­u­lar­ly Venezuela.

“Is that re­al­ly putting Trinidad and To­ba­go first?” he asked, be­fore cit­ing her past re­marks dur­ing a PNM me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day.

“Talk about blow­ing them to pieces, kill them all vi­o­lent­ly, ref­er­ence to de­ceased per­sons as car­cass­es. That is un­be­com­ing of any head of state and cer­tain­ly un­be­com­ing of the prime min­is­ter of a Cari­com mem­ber state.”

Browne de­scribed the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­sponse to Colom­bia’s pres­i­dent as “de­plorable,” af­ter she re­ject­ed re­quests to search for re­mains fol­low­ing a US strike on a Venezue­lan ves­sel al­leged­ly car­ry­ing drugs, guns and am­mu­ni­tion. He in­sist­ed that as a UN mem­ber state, Per­sad-Bisses­sar should an­chor her pub­lic po­si­tions in in­ter­na­tion­al law.

He al­so said the Prime Min­is­ter ap­peared un­com­fort­able with the re­gion­al con­cept of the Caribbean as a “zone of peace,” pro­mot­ed by Cari­com and CELAC, and called on her to ac­count for her stew­ard­ship as Cari­com’s head of re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“I can say with­out fear of con­tra­dic­tion, there have been ques­tions from Cari­com and CELAC del­e­ga­tions as to—up­on what ev­i­dence has Trinidad and To­ba­go been de­clar­ing their sup­port for cer­tain mil­i­tary ac­tions that have oc­curred in the Caribbean Sea, re­cent­ly. We’re not aware of any sub­stan­tive re­sponse from the Prime Min­is­ter or the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

While not­ing her at­ten­dance at the cur­rent UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in New York, Browne re­called her ab­sence from both the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing and the Cari­com-Africa sum­mit in Ethiopia.

He urged Per­sad-Bisses­sar to avoid “nar­row po­lit­i­cal rhetoric or jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for il­le­git­i­mate ac­tions” in her UN­GA state­ment, ref­er­enc­ing US mil­i­tary ac­tions in the Caribbean.

“There should be due ref­er­ence to in­ter­na­tion­al law in such a state­ment. There should be due ref­er­ence to the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court of which Trinidad and To­ba­go is a found­ing con­trib­u­tor.”

Browne al­so pressed the PM to take clear stances on glob­al crises, in­clud­ing the war in Gaza. He ac­knowl­edged For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers’ re­cent com­ments reaf­firm­ing sup­port for Pales­tine, but said more was re­quired.

“A clear, de­fin­i­tive state­ment is re­quired on the geno­cide tak­ing place in Gaza and for Trinidad and To­ba­go to join the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to con­demn the geno­cide and call for an im­me­di­ate cease­fire,” he said.

He added that Gov­ern­ment should demon­strate lead­er­ship on cli­mate change, Haiti’s mi­gra­tion cri­sis, and repa­ra­tions.

Venezuela ten­sions

On re­gion­al ten­sions, Browne said the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to Venezuela risked “se­ri­ous and neg­a­tive con­se­quences.”

“Due to the reck­less, ir­re­spon­si­ble, im­pru­dent po­si­tion and ex­changes that have been oc­cur­ring via mega­phone—so­cial me­dia, What­sApp, etc—the Prime Min­is­ter would be ex­pect­ed to take ac­tion to re­duce the ten­sions,” he said.

He added that T&T should not blind­ly sup­port US ac­tions in the Caribbean Sea with­out ev­i­dence, not­ing that oth­er Cari­com states have not been giv­en ac­cess to such in­for­ma­tion.

“We are not ad­vo­cat­ing for a pro or against or an­ti-any­one stance. We are ad­vo­cat­ing for what we al­ways have—a prin­ci­pled stance con­sis­tent with in­ter­na­tion­al law and the for­eign pol­i­cy of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Browne al­so crit­i­cised re­marks on so­cial me­dia by Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der that In­dia would “nuke” Venezuela on T&T’s be­half. He said such rhetoric could have “dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences” for the coun­try’s diplo­ma­cy.

“When you are a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, every word that comes out of your mouth is gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy,” Browne said, re­call­ing lessons from the late for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.

He urged Per­sad-Bisses­sar to dis­ci­pline reck­less mem­bers of her Cab­i­net.

“Any right-think­ing cit­i­zen would be pleased that the Prime Min­is­ter, though a lit­tle late, took steps to dis­as­so­ci­ate her­self and an of­fi­cial Trinidad and To­ba­go po­si­tion from those very reck­less and ir­re­spon­si­ble ut­ter­ances. But just one pass­ing com­ment should not be suf­fi­cient.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar chas­tised Alexan­der for his com­ment on Tues­day.

“He was to­tal­ly out of line, I do not share his views. I have since told him he needs to stay in his zone. Let’s hope that he com­plies but the Cab­i­net does not share the views ex­pressed by that Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter,” the PM said dur­ing a func­tion ho­n­our­ing T&T’s World Cham­pi­onship Games ath­letes and mem­bers of the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers squad.

Her rep­ri­mand came af­ter Alexan­der’s so­cial me­dia posts fu­elled a scathing re­sponse from Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez.

Alexan­der, who lat­er told the me­dia he had no in­for­ma­tion on In­di­an in­ter­ven­tion in the event of mil­i­tary es­ca­la­tion in the re­gion, has since said he will com­ply with the PM’s or­der.