Mick­ela Pan­day

Lead­er­ship on the re­gion­al stage car­ries weight. Words spo­ken be­fore the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) are not ca­su­al re­marks; they shape diplo­mat­ic re­la­tion­ships, re­gion­al trust and the cred­i­bil­i­ty of our na­tion.

At the re­cent Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar chose to de­scribe the 2022 re­moval of Trinida­di­an busi­ness­man Brent Thomas from Bar­ba­dos as a “kid­nap­ping.” That de­scrip­tion has now sparked re­gion­al back­lash.

Let us be clear about the facts.

In 2022, Brent Thomas was de­tained in Bar­ba­dos and re­turned to Trinidad and To­ba­go aboard a Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sys­tem air­craft. Sub­se­quent­ly, a High Court in Trinidad and To­ba­go ruled in civ­il pro­ceed­ings that the re­moval was un­law­ful. The State with­drew its ap­peal and is­sued an apol­o­gy.

Those are facts.

How­ev­er, Bar­ba­dos’ Prime Min­is­ter, Mia Mot­t­ley, has firm­ly re­ject­ed the char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion of the in­ci­dent as a “kid­nap­ping,” call­ing that de­scrip­tion “a scur­rilous lie and defam­a­to­ry in the ex­treme.” She main­tains that Bar­ba­dos’ au­thor­i­ties act­ed law­ful­ly with­in their un­der­stand­ing of the war­rants pre­sent­ed at the time.

This is where lead­er­ship mat­ters most.

When a Prime Min­is­ter ac­cus­es a fel­low Cari­com state of in­volve­ment in a kid­nap­ping, it is a se­ri­ous charge that re­quires equal­ly se­ri­ous ev­i­dence. If the le­gal rul­ing de­scribed the re­moval as un­law­ful, that should be stat­ed clear­ly. But to el­e­vate the mat­ter to the lev­el of crim­i­nal kid­nap­ping, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a re­gion­al fo­rum, de­mands proof be­yond po­lit­i­cal fram­ing.

What is equal­ly trou­bling is the in­con­sis­ten­cy in the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to pro­tect­ing Trinida­di­ans abroad.

In late 2025, con­tro­ver­sy erupt­ed fol­low­ing re­ports of a Unit­ed States mil­i­tary “dou­ble-tap” strike against a ves­sel in Caribbean wa­ters sus­pect­ed of in­volve­ment in drug traf­fick­ing. Re­ports in­di­cate that af­ter an ini­tial strike dis­abled the boat, a sec­ond strike was con­duct­ed. The le­gal­i­ty and trans­paren­cy of these op­er­a­tions have been ques­tioned in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

There have been con­cerns raised re­gion­al­ly about the iden­ti­ties of those killed in such op­er­a­tions and whether due process was ob­served. Yet there has been no clear, de­tailed pub­lic state­ment from the Gov­ern­ment out­lin­ing what diplo­mat­ic steps were tak­en to de­ter­mine whether any Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als were af­fect­ed, what rep­re­sen­ta­tions were made, or what as­sur­ances were sought.

If our for­eign pol­i­cy is ground­ed in the pro­tec­tion of our cit­i­zens, that pro­tec­tion must be con­sis­tent. It can­not be se­lec­tive. It can­not be loud in one di­rec­tion and mut­ed in an­oth­er.

And this is where the larg­er is­sue emerges: What ex­act­ly is Trinidad and To­ba­go’s for­eign pol­i­cy?

To date, there has been no clear­ly ar­tic­u­lat­ed, pub­licly pre­sent­ed frame­work ex­plain­ing how this Gov­ern­ment in­tends to bal­ance re­la­tion­ships with Cari­com, the Unit­ed States, Venezuela and oth­er key part­ners. In­stead, what we see are episod­ic state­ments, strong lan­guage in mo­ments of ten­sion, si­lence in mo­ments of com­plex­i­ty.

Small states do not have the lux­u­ry of diplo­mat­ic im­pul­sive­ness.

We are ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly po­si­tioned in a re­gion of grow­ing geopo­lit­i­cal sen­si­tiv­i­ty. Cari­com re­mains our re­gion­al fam­i­ly and an im­por­tant eco­nom­ic and diplo­mat­ic bloc. The Unit­ed States re­mains a crit­i­cal trade, se­cu­ri­ty and en­er­gy part­ner. Venezuela is our im­me­di­ate neigh­bour, with whom we share mar­itime and en­er­gy in­ter­ests.

En­gag­ing one does not re­quire alien­at­ing an­oth­er.

There is an old fa­ble about a dog car­ry­ing a bone who sees his re­flec­tion in wa­ter. Be­liev­ing the re­flec­tion’s bone is big­ger, he drops the one he has and dives for the il­lu­sion, los­ing every­thing in the process.

We do not need to choose be­tween Cari­com and the Unit­ed States. We do not need to burn re­gion­al bridges to ap­pear as­sertive, nor re­treat in­to si­lence to avoid dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions. Ma­ture diplo­ma­cy means main­tain­ing strong, re­spect­ful re­la­tion­ships with all part­ners while firm­ly de­fend­ing our na­tion­al in­ter­ests.

But cred­i­bil­i­ty is cur­ren­cy in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions.

When al­le­ga­tions are made with­out pub­licly pre­sent­ed ev­i­dence, cred­i­bil­i­ty weak­ens. When lan­guage es­ca­lates be­yond es­tab­lished le­gal find­ings, trust erodes. When for­eign pol­i­cy ap­pears re­ac­tive rather than strate­gic, un­cer­tain­ty grows.

The re­gion­al re­sponse to the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­marks demon­strates that words have con­se­quences. Pub­lic dis­agree­ment be­tween lead­ers of Cari­com states is not some­thing to be dis­missed light­ly. It sig­nals strain, strain that could have eco­nom­ic, se­cu­ri­ty and diplo­mat­ic im­pli­ca­tions.

The ques­tion is not whether Trinidad and To­ba­go should de­fend its cit­i­zens. It ab­solute­ly should. The ques­tion is whether that de­fence is ground­ed in ver­i­fi­able fact, con­sis­tent prin­ci­ple and co­her­ent strat­e­gy.

Trans­paren­cy strength­ens a na­tion. If ev­i­dence ex­ists to sup­port se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions, present it. If diplo­mat­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tions have been made on be­half of cit­i­zens af­fect­ed by in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions, in­form the pub­lic. If a broad­er for­eign pol­i­cy vi­sion ex­ists, ar­tic­u­late it clear­ly.

We are at a mo­ment when glob­al ten­sions are ris­ing, re­gion­al al­liances are evolv­ing, and small states must nav­i­gate care­ful­ly. In such a mo­ment, lead­er­ship must be mea­sured, fac­tu­al and strate­gic.

Strong lead­er­ship does not re­ly on dra­mat­ic lan­guage. It re­lies on dis­ci­plined diplo­ma­cy.

Trinidad and To­ba­go de­serves a for­eign pol­i­cy that is trans­par­ent, bal­anced and root­ed in truth. On the re­gion­al stage and be­yond, our coun­try’s rep­u­ta­tion is at stake, and cred­i­bil­i­ty, once lost, is far hard­er to re­cov­er than it is to pro­tect.

Mick­ela Pan­day -Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and At­tor­ney at Law