Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

PANA­MA CITY – Ja­maica’s For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Kam­i­na John­son Smith has moved to soft­en re­gion­al ten­sions af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed Cari­com as an “un­re­li­able part­ner,” stress­ing that di­a­logue be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and its re­gion­al neigh­bours re­mains in­tact de­spite re­cent strains.

Speak­ing in an in­ter­view at the CAF In­ter­na­tion­al Eco­nom­ic Fo­rum in Pana­ma, John­son Smith framed dis­agree­ments with­in Cari­com as man­age­able, in­sist­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion at the high­est po­lit­i­cal lev­el had nev­er bro­ken down.

“As in any fam­i­ly, you will have dis­agree­ments,” she said. “And the thing about fam­i­ly is that you re­tain the abil­i­ty to talk.”

Her com­ments fol­lowed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s crit­i­cism of Cari­com in Oc­to­ber, when she ac­cused the bloc of sid­ing with Venezuela over Port-of-Spain, par­tic­u­lar­ly on se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters and the re­gion’s “Zone of Peace” pos­ture.

John­son Smith said re­la­tions be­tween Kingston and Port-of-Spain are still strong.

“The re­la­tion­ship with Trinidad and To­ba­go and Ja­maica has al­ways been a good one,” she said. “We have done our best to keep re­la­tion­ships strong and ac­tive.”

She ac­knowl­edged past fric­tion, in­clud­ing con­cerns raised by Ja­maicans over treat­ment at Trinidad and To­ba­go’s bor­ders, is­sues that cul­mi­nat­ed in then prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley trav­el­ling to Ja­maica in 2016 for talks aimed at eas­ing ten­sions. John­son Smith said those mat­ters had since been ad­dressed.

“Hav­ing solved those is­sues, we try to build and strength­en at all times,” she said.

John­son Smith al­so un­der­scored the im­por­tance of di­rect po­lit­i­cal con­tact, say­ing both lead­ers re­mained ac­ces­si­ble to each oth­er.

“The Prime Min­is­ter would al­ways be able to pick up the phone and reach Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, and she would have the same abil­i­ty as well,” she said.

John­son Smith said Ja­maica was “very ap­pre­cia­tive of the sup­port pro­vid­ed af­ter Melis­sa,” sin­gling out the con­tri­bu­tion from T&TEC.

She said work­ers from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion, es­pe­cial­ly trucks and oth­er equip­ment, were de­ployed through the CAR­ILEC mech­a­nism to sup­port the Ja­maica Pub­lic Ser­vice, ex­pand­ing its ca­pac­i­ty to re­store pow­er in af­fect­ed ar­eas.

“It re­al­ly did add to the abil­i­ty of JPS to roll out re­spons­es in ar­eas at the fastest lev­el,” she said, adding that the as­sis­tance strength­ened Ja­maica’s re­sponse in the weeks fol­low­ing the hur­ri­cane, be­fore the teams re­turned in De­cem­ber.

On the Haiti is­sue, John­son Smith said Cari­com For­eign Min­is­ters re­mained deeply con­cerned about po­lit­i­cal frag­men­ta­tion ahead of the Feb­ru­ary 7 dead­line for the Tran­si­tion­al Pres­i­den­tial Coun­cil, with the bloc con­tin­u­ing to push for co­he­sion and a clear path to elec­tions through on­go­ing en­gage­ment by Cari­com’s Em­i­nent Per­sons Group.

Asked about de­vel­op­ments in Venezuela fol­low­ing the ex­trac­tion of for­mer-pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro by the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary on Jan­u­ary 3, John­son Smith de­clined to com­ment.