Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Cer­tain in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia out­lets have re­port­ed that the Ba­hamas and Ja­maica are al­so among the 17 coun­tries par­tic­i­pat­ing in the US-led Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion (AC­CC), al­though their lead­ers were not at last Sat­ur­day’s launch of the ini­tia­tive.

Ini­tial re­ports on last Sat­ur­day’s Shield of Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit, which launched the AC­CC in Mi­a­mi, had in­di­cat­ed lead­ers of 12 coun­tries were due at the gath­er­ing.

T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Guyana Pres­i­dent Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali were the on­ly two sig­na­to­ries in­vit­ed from the Cari­com re­gion.

US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, in his procla­ma­tion on the an­ti-drug car­tel mech­a­nism, had said his Sec­re­tary of War Pe­ter Hegseth had es­tab­lished the AC­CC, say­ing it was “... a pledge from mil­i­tary lead­ers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 17 coun­tries demon­strat­ing that the re­gion is ready to op­er­a­tionalise hard pow­er to de­feat these threats...”

Pri­or to last Sat­ur­day’s sum­mit, Hegseth had met last week with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean coun­tries at an open­ing event - the Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel con­fer­ence.

The San Juan Dai­ly Star stat­ed that last Sat­ur­day’s sum­mit brought to­geth­er lead­ers from 12 Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean coun­tries and so fa,r 17 coun­tries have com­mit­ted to join­ing the AC­CC coali­tion. The Star said that “The Ba­hamas, Be­lize, Guatemala, Ja­maica and Pe­ru, while part of the coali­tion, were not rep­re­sent­ed at the event” (Sat­ur­day’s sum­mit).

The New York Times stat­ed the same.

The Mi­a­mi Her­ald’s re­port last Thurs­day on the in­au­gur­al Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel con­fer­ence host­ed by Hegseth not­ed at­ten­dees in­clud­ed “mil­i­tary of­fi­cials and de­fence min­is­ters from 17 al­lied gov­ern­ments from South/Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.”

Among them, the Her­ald list­ed: “The Prime min­is­ter of Guyana, the de­fence min­is­ter of Chile and of­fi­cials from Ja­maica, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Ar­genti­na and Paraguay.”

The T&T Guardian has seen the Joint Se­cu­ri­ty De­c­la­ra­tion signed by coun­tries on the Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel Con­fer­ence dat­ed March 5.

Apart from Hegseth’s sig­na­ture, it shows 16 oth­er sig­na­tures.

These are from rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Ar­genti­na’s De­fense Min­istry, the Com­mon­wealth of Ba­hamas’ Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, Ja­maica’s Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, T&T’s De­fence Min­istry, Pana­ma’s Pub­lic Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, Be­lize’s Na­tion­al De­fense and Bor­der Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, Bo­livia’s De­fense Min­istry, Cos­ta Ri­ca’s Pub­lic Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s De­fense Min­istry, Ecuador’s Na­tion­al De­fense Min­istry, El Sal­vador’s Na­tion­al De­fense Min­istry, Guatemala’s Na­tion­al De­fense Min­istry, the Co-op­er­a­tive of Guyana, Hon­duras’ Na­tion­al De­fense Min­istry, Paraguay’s For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry and Pe­ru’s De­fense Min­istry.

Ja­maica’s Glean­er news­pa­per yes­ter­day re­port­ed on the AC­CC was head­lined “Trinidad, Guyana join Amer­i­c­as Counter Car­tel Coali­tion.”

There was no re­ply from Ja­maican For­eign Min­is­ter Kam­i­na John­son-Smith yes­ter­day to Guardian Me­dia’s What­sApp query on Ja­maica’s po­si­tion re­gard­ing the AC­CC.

How­ev­er, a Ja­maican gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial sub­se­quent­ly said Ja­maica was rep­re­sent­ed at the Amer­i­can Counter-Car­tel Con­fer­ence (host­ed by Hegseth) by for­mer Ja­maican high com­mis­sion­er to the US Au­drey Marks. There was no im­me­di­ate in­for­ma­tion on whether Ja­maica is in the AC­CC launched at last Sat­ur­day’s sum­mit.

The Ba­hamas’ Nas­sau Guardian yes­ter­day stat­ed that 17 coun­tries are in­volved in the AC­CC.

The re­port not­ed that Ba­hamas’ Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Wayne Munroe spoke at the Amer­i­c­as Counter- Car­tel con­fer­ence, where Caribbean lead­ers signed the joint se­cu­ri­ty de­c­la­ra­tion.

Munroe had said, “Con­sis­tent with our ex­ist­ing bi­lat­er­al agree­ments and with full re­spect for the sov­er­eign­ty and laws of each coun­try, and with due re­gard to in­ter­na­tion­al le­gal norms, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in­tends to work close­ly with the US De­part­ment of War in ex­pand­ing joint mil­i­tary co­op­er­a­tion, recog­nis­ing the shared re­sponse.”

Munroe said these are “spe­cif­ic, ac­tion­able pri­or­i­ties that The Ba­hamas brings to this con­fer­ence with the ex­pec­ta­tion of a se­ri­ous and sub­stan­tive re­sponse.”

He said it is a fun­da­men­tal truth that no small state can ad­e­quate­ly se­cure it­self with­out out­side help and re­sources, as he pledged The Ba­hamas’ con­tin­ued com­mit­ment as a “front­line mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty part­ner ...”

There was no im­me­di­ate re­sponse yes­ter­day to emailed queries to Cari­com chair­man, St Kitts/Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Ter­rence Drew, on the AC­CC, the fact that on­ly T&T and Guyana’s leader were in­vit­ed to its launch, what the ini­tia­tive means for Cari­com, its se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems and uni­ty - and whether Cari­com/lead­ers might hold talks with T&T and Guyana’s lead­ers on the de­vel­op­ment.

The US-led ini­tia­tive and T&T and Guyana’s par­tic­i­pa­tion have been re­port­ed in An­tigua, St Kitts/Nevis, Bar­ba­dos, St Lu­cia and Guyana’s me­dia, among oth­ers.