DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors have crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­dress to the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, ar­gu­ing that she missed key op­por­tu­ni­ties to ad­vance Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­ter­ests on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi said the Prime Min­is­ter should have placed greater em­pha­sis on the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) and its role in ad­dress­ing is­sues such as ter­ror­ism and state re­spons­es.

“I think the Prime Min­is­ter missed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak to the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, and that is a huge is­sue,” Al-Rawi said.

“If you’re go­ing to deal with mat­ters around ter­ror­ism and state re­spons­es, you have to fo­cus on the ICC and its po­si­tion. As a found­ing mem­ber of the ICC, I thought that was some­thing the Prime Min­is­ter could have ex­am­ined more close­ly and cer­tain­ly ad­dressed.”

Al-Rawi al­so ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to Cari­com, trade and na­tion­al sov­er­eign­ty, not­ing that the re­gion­al bloc re­mains a cru­cial mar­ket for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“The Prime Min­is­ter is an enig­ma to me. There was noth­ing un­ex­pect­ed in her po­si­tion. She has stu­dious­ly avoid­ed speak­ing as one of Cari­com and has not fo­cused on the mar­ket Cari­com rep­re­sents to us. It re­mains our largest mar­ket out­side of tra­di­tion­al part­ners such as the Unit­ed States, Eu­rope and the Far East. We are con­cerned about that. There are par­tic­u­lar is­sues of im­por­tance to us, in­clud­ing trade and sov­er­eign­ty. The main­te­nance of a zone of peace is al­so an im­por­tant point.”

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Fos­ter Cum­mings was even more crit­i­cal, say­ing the ad­dress gen­er­at­ed ridicule on­line and failed to re­flect a col­lec­tive Cari­com po­si­tion.

“I saw in­ter­na­tion­al memes cir­cu­lat­ing about the Prime Min­is­ter’s ad­dress at the UN and, un­for­tu­nate­ly, that caused some em­bar­rass­ment to the coun­try. It’s not some­thing we feel proud of be­cause the Prime Min­is­ter rep­re­sents Trinidad and To­ba­go, and we all want to feel proud when our lead­ers ad­dress in­ter­na­tion­al fo­rums,” he said.

“The Prime Min­is­ter did not dis­tin­guish her­self, did not rep­re­sent a col­lec­tive Cari­com po­si­tion as we have seen in the past, and did not put for­ward a prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­ter­ests.”

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les al­so crit­i­cised Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s per­for­mance, par­tic­u­lar­ly her re­sponse to US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s sug­ges­tion at the UN that the term “ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence” should be re­placed with “su­per in­tel­li­gence.”

Gon­za­les said the Prime Min­is­ter should fo­cus on rep­re­sent­ing the peo­ple of T&T.

“She must stop lick­ing a** and be a Prime Min­is­ter for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go in­stead of mak­ing her­self look fool­ish on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage,” he said.