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TRINIDAD GUARDIAN EDITORIAL: Regional leaders of the Caribbean Community would have taken careful note of a report in yesterday’s Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, in which Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar confirmed her attendance at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
The leaders would have paid attention to the report because they know the T&T Prime Minister did not attend the 49th regular meeting of the Conference of the Heads of Government of Caricom in Jamaica in July.
In her place, T&T’s delegation to the Caricom meeting was led by Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Sean Sobers, who explained her absence by saying important national issues were engaging her attention.
However, during the week of the conference, there did not appear to be any national issue that should have prevented Persad-Bissessar from attending the Jamaica meeting.
And last weekend, the Prime Minister missed another opportunity to meet her regional colleagues when she opted out of the Second Africa-Caricom Summit in Ethiopia.
The regional prime ministers attending that meeting were Mia Mottley (Barbados), Dickon Mitchell (Grenada), Terrence Drew (St Kitts and Nevis), Gaston Browne (Antigua and Barbuda), Philip Davis (The Bahamas) and Ralph Gonsalves (St Vincent and Grenadines), as well Caricom Secretary General Carla Barnett.
It is quite likely the only reason Guyana President Irfaan Ali and Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness did not attend was because of issues relating to general elections in their countries.
While there are some who would perceive the Africa-Caricom Summit to be of minimal importance, as the leader of a small country in the Caribbean, which is undergoing economic stress, Persad-Bissessar has a responsibility to ensure she makes as many international friends as possible.
Meeting businesspeople at an international engagement is a great opportunity for an investment-minded leader to sell the merits of her country.
After missing the Jamaica summit, Mrs Persad-Bissessar also missed the opportunity to connect with Caricom colleagues in Ethiopia.
She could have provided them with the assurance that T&T’s wholehearted support for the overly aggressive US posturing in the Southern Caribbean region does not mean this country is any less aligned with Caricom’s established position that this region remains a zone of peace.
It needs to remain uppermost in the minds of this country’s policymakers that the Caricom region is the main market for T&T’s non-energy manufacturing sector. Also, wholly State-owned Paria Fuel Trading Company earned hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from the export of fuels to the Caricom market and from bunkering, according to its audited financials for the year ended September 30, 2023.
It is in the financial interest of T&T’s manufacturing sector, therefore, that this country maintain its strong diplomatic and political relationship with its Caribbean neighbours.
The fact that Mrs Persad-Bissessar has chosen to make the UNGA meeting in New York her first overseas mission is likely to be perceived as another signal to her Caricom colleagues.
That is because in responding to a query from Guardian Media, she said a face-to-face meeting on the margins of the UNGA was proposed by deputy US Secretary of State Christopher Landau.
As it is clear that Persad-Bissessar is positioning herself to be the go-to leader in the Caribbean for the US, it is hoped that meeting is with President Donald Trump and that it results in a great deal of tangible benefits for this country.
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Why would you expect Trinidad prime minister bisesor to be at an African summit? Is it an Indian summit? Remember she is racist and plus been a woman emotional, those type of unintergrated indians don’t like black people, she subscribe to mahatma Gandhi ideology of scorning black Africans.
The absence of the Trinidad and Tobago prime minister form the African-Caribbean summit in Ethiopia has really touched the writer of this opinion piece.
According to the writer it was a snobbing by the prime minister.
The writer went on to identify the leaders who were present at that summit.
Noticeably absent and for which the writer made no mention was the Caribbean eldest statesman, though the youngest, Dominica’s prime minister.
No reason was preferred for his absence from the delegation.
Is he so insignificant in Caribbean politics that his absence from leadership forum goes unnoticed.
Why did the writer fail to address his absence however he/she finds the absence of the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago offensive?
The prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago offered an excuse for her absence.
The writer shared it with us.
He/she has not shared and excuse frk8m the prime minister of Dominica with us.
Was he/she too ashamed of the reason put forward by the prime minister of Dominica?
While other heads of state were in Africa trying to build economic, social and cultural bridges the prime minister of Dominica went to confess his sins to the pope.
What could have been wearing so heavily in his conscience that he felt the need to snob other leaders to go and have it taken away by the pope?
Could it be that he feels that the grip he has on power in Dominca is slipping away and he wants to confess his atrocities and corruption against the people before they reign fire and brimstone on him.
It is obvious that whatever is troubling him is much more important to deal with than African-Caribbean relationship.
The writer obviously is unhappy with the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago for some reason and is using her absence from the summit to attack her while pretending to be oblivious to the absence of the Dominican prime minister.
Dominica boasts of the longest serving prime minister.
He should be the one at the front of any line when regional leaders seek to break new ground and new relationships.
Instead as is the norm with regional politicians to employ square pegs for round holes he is showing is that he is in fact a square peg in a round hole.
It is the Caribbean leaders who have him so firmly rooted in office by their silence.
That same silence seems to be loud when he fails to attend functions with them.
The time is right for the leaders who do not miss him at international functions to take a stand and speak out against his atrocities in Dominica and call for free, transparent, fair and clean elections so they can have an ally and strengthen their position whenever they go out to summit.
The trini PM is looking after her own, and Antiguans need to start doing the same. Antigua for Antiguans!
WHAT THE HELL…! …SNUBBING OF CARICOM? …ISSUES OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE: …TALKSHOP SYNDROME?…THREE CHEERS TO KAMLA
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Not quite sure what may have prompted this ‘…EDITORIAL.’
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NATIONAL INTEREST
But suffice to say, if ‘…NATIONAL ISSUES OF IMPORTANCE,’ arose, then Prime Minister ‘…KAMLA PERSAUD-BISSESSAR,’ then the ‘…NATIONAL INTEREST,’ supercedes all other interest.
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NO CARICOM TALKSHOP
Who can be critical of the ‘…PRIME MINISTER,’ if her presence was not felt at the ‘…CARICOM TALKSHOP’ [Paragraph 3].
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THREE CHEERS TO KAMLA.’
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TALK GOOD.
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