Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

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Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has crit­i­cised Cari­com, de­scrib­ing it as an “un­re­li­able part­ner” that has cho­sen to side with Venezuela over Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Speak­ing dur­ing an in­ter­view on the Crime Watch pro­gramme last evening, Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­ment­ed on the lack of re­gion­al sup­port for T&T’s en­dorse­ment of Unit­ed States’ naval as­sets in the Caribbean.

She said, “Cari­com is prov­ing to be an un­re­li­able part­ner in some re­gards be­cause they chose Venezuela over Trinidad. They chose Venezuela over Trinidad, and that is some­thing we need to re­mem­ber.”

The Prime Min­is­ter added, “It is very clear that some of our Cari­com part­ners have tak­en a dif­fer­ent view by talk­ing about the zone of peace. But there is no zone of peace in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Maybe there is a zone of peace in some of those oth­er Cari­com neigh­bours be­cause they are fur­ther north.

“We are the clos­est here to the main­land and, of course, we are be­ing hit, re­al­ly se­ri­ous­ly hit, with drug traf­fick­ing, gangs, car­tels, hu­man traf­fick­ing, and gun run­ning. That is not hap­pen­ing in their coun­tries be­cause they are not hav­ing 600 mur­ders in a year.”

The T&T Gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly re­served its po­si­tion on a Cari­com state­ment reaf­firm­ing the Caribbean as a “Zone of Peace,” a move that set it apart from oth­er mem­ber states, all of whom sup­port­ed the reaf­fir­ma­tion.

In re­sponse to grow­ing re­gion­al ten­sions and the T&T Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on for­eign mil­i­tary pres­ence, a group of for­mer Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment is­sued a strong and rare joint de­c­la­ra­tion ti­tled “Our Caribbean Space: A Zone of Peace on Land, Sea and Air­space Where the Rule of Law Pre­vails.” The state­ment was signed by at least ten for­mer prime min­is­ters from across the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing for­mer T&T prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so yes­ter­day main­tained that the pres­ence of the USS Grave­ly, a US war­ship, does not mean T&T is be­ing used as a mil­i­tary base amid ris­ing ten­sions be­tween the Don­ald Trump-led ad­min­is­tra­tion and Nico­las Maduro’s Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment.

“We are not be­ing used as a base. We have had ships come here be­fore, ships came now, and ships will come af­ter, be­cause we have a his­to­ry of co­op­er­a­tion with the Unit­ed States. You must re­mem­ber, the Unit­ed States is one of the largest na­tions, one of our largest trad­ing part­ners, and we have long-stand­ing co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two coun­tries. So, I say cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly, we have no plans for Trinidad and To­ba­go to be used as a base for any mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tions any­where else,” she said.

The PM added, “There has been no such re­quest from the US and in­stead re­quests for train­ing and help in hu­man­i­tar­i­an projects, like these mili­ti­a­men who are here, could help us with projects at schools, or even some of our di­lap­i­dat­ed mil­i­tary bases in the coun­try. So that is what this vis­it is about, that mil­i­tary co­op­er­a­tion for train­ing and for hu­man­i­tar­i­an ben­e­fits as well to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar again reaf­firmed her ca­ma­raderie with the Venezue­lan peo­ple.

“We main­tain that we have good re­la­tions and all good things for the peo­ple of Venezuela. We stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Venezuela.”

The PM had al­so told ear­li­er yes­ter­day that she has not re­ceived any re­quest from the US for the USS Ger­ald Ford, the world’s largest war­ship, to en­ter T&T’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters. The lead ship of the US Navy's newest class of nu­clear-pow­ered air­craft car­ri­ers has been de­ployed to the Caribbean re­gion. The Pen­ta­gon stat­ed the goal is to "bol­ster US ca­pac­i­ty to de­tect, mon­i­tor, and dis­rupt il­lic­it ac­tors and ac­tiv­i­ties" and to "dis­rupt nar­cotics traf­fick­ing and de­grade and dis­man­tle transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions" in the West­ern Hemi­sphere.