AKASH SAMA­ROO

Re­port­ing from Ja­maica

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Sean Sobers, says Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is not at­tend­ing the on­go­ing Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in Ja­maica due to “cer­tain na­tion­al is­sues” en­gag­ing her at­ten­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

He said to Guardian Me­dia that her ab­sence, though it would have been her first Cari­com meet­ing in her sec­ond term, is not a slight to the re­gion­al body. In­stead, she ap­point­ed him to reaf­firm T&T’s con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to Cari­com.

Sobers said Per­sad-Bisses­sar is not the on­ly re­gion­al leader not in at­ten­dance.

Af­ter days of spec­u­la­tion about her par­tic­i­pa­tion, it was con­firmed on Sat­ur­day that Per­sad-Bisses­sar would not be present. The Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs an­nounced that Sobers and Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, Roger Alexan­der, would lead this coun­try’s del­e­ga­tion.

No rea­son for her ab­sence was giv­en on Sat­ur­day and mes­sages to the Prime Min­is­ter’s mo­bile phone went unan­swered.

How­ev­er, speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at the event’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the Mon­tego Bay Con­ven­tion Cen­tre, in Ja­maica Sobers re­vealed, “there are cer­tain na­tion­al is­sues that are cur­rent­ly en­gag­ing her at­ten­tion, that re­quires un­di­vid­ed at­ten­tion and she is in Trinidad treat­ing with those is­sues. I mean it fol­lows a sim­i­lar pat­tern with some oth­er lead­ers who are not here, which you will recog­nise when the Cari­com heads kick off, but there are some oth­er lead­ers who did not come as well too, be­cause they have oth­er is­sues that they are en­gag­ing with in their own lo­cal ter­ri­to­ries.”

Asked if the is­sues which kept the Prime Min­is­ter away were na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns that the pub­lic should be aware of, Sobers said, “Noth­ing to be con­cerned about. No, no, no, no. Well, we have the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty here, so noth­ing to be con­cerned about that. They re­quire her un­di­vid­ed at­ten­tion and she has a com­pe­tent team here with her that has been in con­stant con­tact with her. Since we left Trinidad yes­ter­day, to­day we’ve been speak­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter, she’s al­ready li­aised with many of the heads vir­tu­al­ly and are in con­stant con­tact with them.”

He did not elab­o­rate fur­ther on what the is­sues are.

For­mer For­eign Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne crit­i­cised Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ab­sence from the Cari­com meet­ing, call­ing it a trou­bling sig­nal to the re­gion­al body.

He ar­gued that the pres­ence of new­ly ap­point­ed Min­is­ters Sean Sobers and Roger Alexan­der does not make up for her ab­sence.

“Send­ing two brand-new min­is­ters and a new Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary to lead the del­e­ga­tion, just two months af­ter be­ing elect­ed, is sim­ply not good enough for a found­ing CARI­COM mem­ber,” he said.

Browne not­ed that T&T holds lead re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and en­er­gy, mak­ing high-lev­el lead­er­ship cru­cial at this time.

“These meet­ings are typ­i­cal­ly dri­ven by Heads of Gov­ern­ment, not min­is­ters, es­pe­cial­ly in cau­cus ses­sions where their voic­es car­ry the most weight and in­flu­ence,” he added.

But in re­sponse, Sobers said, “I’ll say that’s to­tal­ly false. Min­is­ter Alexan­der and I are quite com­pe­tent and ca­pa­ble of treat­ing with all of the is­sues on the agen­da for the Cari­com heads. As Min­is­ter Browne would well be aware, that those agen­das would have been is­sued be­fore and so we would have been quite fa­mil­iar with them al­though they are up­dat­ed al­most on a reg­u­lar ba­sis and our Prime Min­is­ter is in con­stant con­tact with us, giv­ing us the rel­e­vant di­rec­tion that we move around and ma­neu­ver this en­tire Cari­com heads.”

Sobers said he at­tend­ed a meet­ing yes­ter­day morn­ing in Ja­maica and was treat­ed with re­spect.

“I was able to en­gage in the meet­ing in a fruit­ful way and my com­ments were tak­en on board and rec­om­men­da­tions tak­en on board.”

The min­is­ter stressed the Prime Min­is­ter’s ab­sence is in no way a slight to the re­gion­al body.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go has un­der­scored its close re­la­tions with Cari­com. As a mat­ter of fact, many peo­ple may not know the Prime Min­is­ter has a very close re­la­tion­ship with Ja­maica. She spent about 14 years of her life here and she’s ex­pressed on a num­ber of oc­ca­sions the warmth and in­ex­tri­ca­ble link that she has with the peo­ple of Ja­maica dur­ing that tenure and con­tin­ues to this day.”

He added, “And the Prime Min­is­ter would have in­di­cat­ed on a num­ber of oc­ca­sions with Cari­com lead­ers and through us, as a new ad­min­is­tra­tion, that we in­tend to reaf­firm our re­la­tion­ship with Cari­com and stay con­nect­ed to all of the aims and ob­jec­tives that make up the Cari­com cau­cus.”

On Sobers’ ar­rival at the Mon­tego Bay Con­ven­tion Cen­tre where the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny was held yes­ter­day, he was greet­ed by the host na­tion’s Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness where they had a brief con­ver­sa­tion. Ex­plain­ing what was said, Sobers told Guardian Me­dia, “He ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt of the Prime Min­is­ter’s phone calls, con­stant phone calls and the cor­re­spon­dence sent from my min­istry to him. I ex­pressed my con­grat­u­la­tions to him on be­half of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go for Ja­maica ac­cept­ing the chair for Cari­com for the next six months and I ex­pressed my grat­i­tude for the fan­tas­tic en­gage­ment that we’ve had so far in Ja­maica.”

Al­so in at­ten­dance to rep­re­sent T&T is Am­bas­sador to Cari­com Ralph Maraj. He said this coun­try sent a strong del­e­ga­tion to un­der­score its com­mit­ment to its re­gion­al re­la­tion­ship.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to be the fea­tured speak­er at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Mon­day Night Re­port event in Pe­nal this evening.