Ke­jan Haynes and

Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she val­ues uni­ty with Cari­com lead­ers but in­sists her first du­ty is to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

She leaves to­mor­row for New York, where she will ad­dress the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA) at 5 pm on Fri­day. Dur­ing her six-day ab­sence, Works Min­is­ter Jear­lean John will act as Prime Min­is­ter. John, a deputy leader of the UNC and To­ba­go-born front­line mem­ber of gov­ern­ment, has long been re­gard­ed as one of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s most trust­ed man­agers in­side and out­side of elec­tion cam­paigns.

Asked whether she ex­pect­ed to meet with re­gion­al col­leagues at the UN, Per­sad-Bisses­sar replied, “Oh, most cer­tain­ly, any of those who are there, we will def­i­nite­ly meet with them.”

She was speak­ing to re­porters af­ter an award cer­e­mo­ny for Keshorn Wal­cott, Jereem Richards and the vic­to­ri­ous CPL team, Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed sug­ges­tions that her re­cent stance on Venezuela and US in­volve­ment in the south­ern Caribbean re­flect­ed wan­ing faith in Cari­com. “Some of the ones who are mis­con­stru­ing are in the me­dia. By the way, we re­main on good re­la­tions with the peo­ple of Venezuela. That’s the first point. The sec­ond point is Trinidad and To­ba­go first. I put the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go first.”

She ar­gued that while the re­gion re­mains bound by shared prin­ci­ples, each mem­ber has the sov­er­eign right to act in its own in­ter­est. “So whilst we have the uni­ty in Cari­com, every na­tion state in Cari­com is free to ex­er­cise their sov­er­eign rights as they think best. At this time, our will­ing­ness in ac­cept­ing the US in the wa­ters of the South­com, in the South­ern Caribbean, in the in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters, I’m very hap­py about that. That is my sov­er­eign right for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said the coun­try’s crime cri­sis made it nec­es­sary to seek ex­ter­nal sup­port. “Re­mem­ber, many of the oth­er Cari­com na­tions do not have the car­nage we have here. We had over 600 mur­ders in this tiny is­land state in one year. We have the nar­co traf­fick­ing, the hu­man traf­fick­ing, and many oth­er ills that come from crim­i­nal­i­ty. Many of those Cari­com na­tions do not face a sim­i­lar thing.”

She con­tin­ued, “At this time, I think it is the right time and the right place for Trinidad and To­ba­go to change our par­a­digms when it comes to our sov­er­eign in­ter­ests and the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. I put that first.”

Still, Per­sad-Bisses­sar stressed that her com­mit­ment to re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty re­mains strong. “To my Cari­com part­ners or cousins, broth­ers, sis­ters in the Cari­com, we love them. We are com­mit­ted to the Cari­com. So noth­ing I’m say­ing is against the Cari­com. It has to do, as I say, with first of all, look­ing af­ter the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar trav­els with Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein, join­ing For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers and Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary Nicholas Mor­ris, who left for New York on Mon­day.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is al­so in New York for high-lev­el meet­ings along­side the As­sem­bly. The PNM con­firmed she will take part in of­fi­cial dis­cus­sions and speak­ing en­gage­ments on is­sues of in­ter­na­tion­al con­cern, in­clud­ing with mem­bers of the di­as­po­ra.

This year’s UN­GA, themed “Bet­ter To­geth­er: 80 Years and More for Peace, De­vel­op­ment and Hu­man Rights”, will fea­ture more than 150 world lead­ers. Recog­ni­tion of Pales­tine, cli­mate change, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, food in­se­cu­ri­ty and glob­al con­flicts are ex­pect­ed to dom­i­nate the de­bate.

Brazil’s Pres­i­dent Luiz In­á­cio Lu­la da Sil­va opened pro­ceed­ings, fol­lowed by US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, who de­liv­ered a sharp cri­tique of the UN and oth­er states. There is no con­fir­ma­tion yet on whether Per­sad-Bisses­sar will meet with Trump or US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, though she has in­di­cat­ed she will hold side­line dis­cus­sions with the US Deputy Sec­re­tary of State.

She is due back in T&T on Sep­tem­ber 30.

Cari­com’s Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett and As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Eliz­a­beth Solomon are lead­ing the Com­mu­ni­ty’s en­gage­ments at the As­sem­bly. Suri­name’s Pres­i­dent Jen­nifer Geer­lings-Si­mons opened Cari­com’s par­tic­i­pa­tion yes­ter­day, with Bar­nett al­so in­volved in a se­ries of high-lev­el events, in­clud­ing a meet­ing on Haiti and a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing sign­ing with UNC­TAD.

Oth­er re­gion­al lead­ers in New York in­clude Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da’s Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne.

Venezuela’s For­eign Min­is­ter Yvan Gil will ad­dress the As­sem­bly on Fri­day.

Cari­com women lead the charge

Cari­com on Mon­day con­firmed it would par­tic­i­pate ac­tive­ly in high-lev­el en­gage­ments at the UN­GA. Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett and As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Eliz­a­beth Solomon are ad­vanc­ing the re­gion’s pri­or­i­ties on cli­mate ac­tion, sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, peace­build­ing and glob­al health, while re­in­forc­ing Cari­com’s com­mit­ment to mul­ti­lat­er­al diplo­ma­cy.

Suri­name’s Pres­i­dent Jen­nifer Geer­lings-Si­mons—the coun­try’s first fe­male head of state—opened Cari­com’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Gen­er­al De­bate yes­ter­day. Bar­nett is al­so play­ing a key role in sev­er­al events, in­clud­ing an UNC­TAD-Cari­com mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing sign­ing; a high-lev­el meet­ing on Haiti; and the first bi­en­ni­al sum­mit for a sus­tain­able, in­clu­sive and re­silient glob­al econ­o­my.

Cari­com’s lead­er­ship on Haiti was high­light­ed at Mon­day’s round­table “Mak­ing the Case for Haiti,” where Solomon led the Com­mu­ni­ty’s in­ter­ven­tions. She is al­so rep­re­sent­ing Cari­com at the At­lantic Coun­cil Glob­al Cit­i­zen Awards.

Cari­com for­eign min­is­ters will take part in the Com­mon­wealth For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ters’ Meet­ing with their Nordic coun­ter­parts and at­tend the EU-CELAC For­eign Min­is­ters’ Meet­ing. They al­so con­vened the 24th Spe­cial Meet­ing of the Coun­cil for For­eign and Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions (COF­COR) on Mon­day to de­lib­er­ate on key for­eign pol­i­cy mat­ters ahead of high-lev­el week.

Sev­er­al re­gion­al lead­ers are al­ready in New York, in­clud­ing Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da’s Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne. Venezuela’s For­eign Min­is­ter Yvan Gil is al­so due to ad­dress the UN­GA on Fri­day.

PNM seeks clar­i­ty on Gov­ern­ment’s US trip

The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) says it will de­mand a full ac­count­ing from the Gov­ern­ment on the trip to the Unit­ed States by of­fi­cials from the For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­istry and the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM).

PNM sen­a­tors have not in­di­cat­ed whether ques­tions will be raised in Fri­day’s Sen­ate sit­ting or at a lat­er date. The Sen­ate is sched­uled to de­bate three bills aimed at strength­en­ing an­ti-cor­rup­tion and an­ti-mon­ey-laun­der­ing mea­sures.

As of yes­ter­day, there had been no pub­lic state­ment from the For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­istry on the de­par­ture of Min­is­ter Sean Sobers and Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary Nicholas Mor­ris, nor any an­nounce­ment on who is act­ing in their po­si­tions.

Op­po­si­tion of­fi­cials note this is the lat­est in­stance in which min­is­ters have left the coun­try with­out no­ti­fy­ing the pub­lic of their des­ti­na­tion, pur­pose, length of stay or act­ing arrange­ments—in­for­ma­tion that was rou­tine­ly re­leased in the past.

While sim­i­lar laps­es oc­curred un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, the OPM at the time con­sis­tent­ly is­sued state­ments when­ev­er then-prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley trav­elled abroad.