In what is perhaps the worst public rift in the region since a row over the U.S. invasion of Grenada back in 1983, Trinidad has said it will not attend any future meetings of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) until a disagreement over the reappointment of the secretary general is resolved.
The announcement by Foreign Minister Sean Sobers came after the bloc at the weekend denied that the Trinidad and Tobago’s delegation to the late February leaders summit in St. Kitts had disinvited the country from attending a closed-door caucus meeting in neighboring Nevis where Secretary General Carla Barnett was reappointed for a second five-year term.
The Trinidad government had blamed flaws in the process for retaining the Belizean economist but bloc chairman and St. Kitts’ Prime Minister Terrance Drew said in a late Saturday statement that Sobers did not attend the meeting because of his fear of “seasickness” on the brief boat ride from St. Kitts to sister isle, Nevis. He was not in fact barred from the meeting as alleged, Drew said.
Countering Drew’s allegation of seasickness, the Trinidad and Tobago government published pre-conference memos showing that Drew and the Guyana-based regional secretary had made it clear that only leaders or heads of government would have been entitled to attend the closed-door caucus, so Sobers would have been excluded because Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar had left after the first day of the summit.
The prime minister made it clear that she wants to see the back of Barnett, 68. She has also made it clear that her stance has to do with a formal complaint she had made to Barnett back in 2022 over the capture of a Trinidadian businessman by Barbados police in Barbados. The prime minister had publicly complained at the St. Kitts meeting that Barnett had not had the decency to even acknowledge her letter apparently because she was in opposition back then.
Barnett has so far remained silent on the escalating feud in the 15-nation bloc even as her future hangs in the balance.
In his statement late Saturday, Chairman Drew stated that all member nations were made aware of the work program and the draft agenda that had included the caucus meeting in Nevis.
Minister Sobers, who was leading the delegation at that time, “indicated that he had a problem with seasickness so he may not be able to attend,” according to Drew, noting that Sobers “did not subsequently indicate to the chairman or the secretary-general that he would be willing and able to attend the retreat.”
Drew’s statement came hours after Trinidad’s government announced its withdrawal from future regional meetings until it was convinced that the process to reappoint Barnett was fair and transparent. Leaders had met late Friday in an emergency session to discuss the embarrassing row among neighbors. Drew’s statement was issued after the meeting.
“Trinidad and Tobago maintains the position that the matter of the reappointment of the secretary-general is of grave importance and should be openly and transparently discussed by all heads of government, not a select few, at an appropriately scheduled meeting with a pellucid agenda. Trinidad and Tobago, therefore, declines to attend any meeting proposed until Trinidad and Tobago is furnished with the relevant information requested in previous missives issued to your good self,” the government announcement noted.
It also stated that the country will not recognize her position after her initial term ends in late August “as the process undertaken was surreptitious, corrupted and flawed.”
But Sobers made it clear the country will remain a member even though it has serious problems with the operations of the Guyana-based secretariat and how the region functions generally.
Giving an indication of its mindset in the bloc, the government there has reminded all and sundry that Trinidad contributes 22% or about $20 million of the regional annual budget but it has so far not taken any steps to withdraw or alter the level of its financial contributions. Its portion is the largest single among members.