JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says the stance tak­en by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, that she does not care about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of not be­ing sup­port­ed by her Cari­com part­ners for a seat at the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, is un­for­tu­nate.

As a for­mer rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Na­tions, Beck­les al­so crit­i­cised the com­ments while speak­ing with the me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

Re­spond­ing to a re­port by the Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion (CMC) which sug­gest­ed that Port-of-Spain’s de­ci­sion to sup­port the Unit­ed States’ mil­i­tary build-up in the Caribbean could jeop­ar­dise its 2027–2028 Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil nom­i­na­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “I sim­ply do not care if any­one with­draws their sup­port. That is their choice.”

How­ev­er, Beck­les said back­ing from the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty would have been cru­cial to the coun­try’s cam­paign and urged the Prime Min­is­ter to re­con­sid­er her po­si­tion.

“You’re go­ing to lose, so you don’t care if you lose all of those votes. I think that is re­al­ly, re­al­ly more than just un­for­tu­nate, but I hope the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter re­vis­its that po­si­tion be­cause it is not just the is­sue of the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.”

Beck­les added that Cari­com is more than just a meet­ing of heads of state but in­volves trade and im­mi­gra­tion, with re­la­tions and re­la­tion­ships tran­scend­ing bor­ders.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in re­sponse to the CMC ar­ti­cle, added that she was putting the coun­try first.

“I have made it ex­plic­it­ly clear that T&T will al­ways come first un­der my lead­er­ship. No oth­er coun­try be­sides the US is will­ing to as­sist us to ag­gres­sive­ly fight the drug and arms traf­fick­ers. I am not go­ing to toe Cari­com’s line while our coun­try is go­ing to hell with drugs, out-of-con­trol vi­o­lent crime, and mur­ders for the last 20 years.

“Added to that, we have tens of thou­sands of il­le­gal Venezue­lan im­mi­grants here who are putting a strain on our ser­vices.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the prime min­is­ters of Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da, Ja­maica, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, and St Lu­cia, as well as Guyana’s Pres­i­dent, on Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments, but as of late yes­ter­day evening, there was no re­sponse.

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne said he did not want to com­ment ow­ing to the good re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two coun­tries, adding he may make things worse if he speaks.

Am­bas­sador to Cari­com Ralph Maraj, when con­tact­ed, said he would re­spond at a lat­er time, but up to late yes­ter­day, there was no re­sponse. Mean­while, at­tempts to con­tact for­mer am­bas­sador to the UN Den­nis Fran­cis were un­suc­cess­ful.

When asked if T&T was up­set­ting the peo­ple of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty, Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Jear­lean John said the par­ty is more con­cerned about an­ger­ing the pop­u­la­tion.

“As the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, we’ll be much more con­cerned if we up­set the peo­ple of T&T. As the Prime Min­is­ter has said, she has been very clear, it’s T&T first.”

John quipped that any cit­i­zen would be pleased to hear a Prime Min­is­ter say they are the sole con­cern, adding that the coun­try should be “over­joyed” by the de­c­la­ra­tion.

“Of course, we love Cari­com. They are our broth­ers and sis­ters, ob­vi­ous­ly, but we have a unique prob­lem here that is not preva­lent in the oth­er Caribbean is­lands. What is that prob­lem? Drugs and guns killing our chil­dren, spoil­ing our com­mu­ni­ties!” she said, adding that the scourge can­not con­tin­ue.

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue of mi­grants, John said any­one who feels moved by the plight of il­le­gal mi­grants should house them.

“Be­cause they are caus­ing, not all of course, hav­oc on our so­cial in­sti­tu­tions,” John said.

She added she could not see any “right-think­ing cit­i­zen” say­ing yes to drugs.

She stressed that the Gov­ern­ment is say­ing no to drugs and no to il­le­gal guns.