TT avoids outright condemnation of Iraq war

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Knowlson Gift strenuously resisted the urging of reporters to make an outright condemnation of the US led war on Iraq. The strongest word the former diplomat was prepared to use yesterday was “unjustified”.

Speaking at a post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall, Gift said if one went back to the provisions of the UN system — where the weak(er) are supposed to be protected from the strong(er) — one would expect that the justification for any assault on any member of the United Nations should be fully debated and aired within that body. “And if that process were not complete, then there is every reason to believe that something unjust took place,” he said. Asked if he was saying that Trinidad and Tobago did not support the war, Gift said this country was “not sympathetic” to unilateral intervention. The Minister added that it seemed that the United Nations had failed on two counts. “It has failed in the objective of bringing nations together, and that failure is further compounded by its inability to have kept both nations apart,” he said.

At the conference Manning said while Trinidad and Tobago was not in a “heightened state of alert”, “greater vigilance was being exercised at this time”. Gift said the position of Trinidad and Tobago and indeed of Caricom was that the rules of the United Nations system should be adhered to. He said the majority opinion within the UN was that the matter was not sufficiently ventilated within the broad UN family. Asked about a diplomatic note from the US to Caribbean and other countries expressing displeasure at  their participation in a proposed meeting of the UN General Assembly to discuss military action, Gift said he had seen the note and there was no time to respond to it. “We were  overtaken by time, circumstances and events (so we didn’t reach that stage),” he said. He said while it was not a “threat in the sense of an ultimatum”, it certainly stated the UN preference not to have the matter debated.

On the visit of Energy Minister, Eric Williams to Washington, Manning said the United States had been concerned about its energy supplies and the security of those supplies. He said the National Security Council had met on its own as well as with the energy countries and there was a contingency plan to protect this country’s oil and energy installations. Manning, who had predicted an increase in revenues in the event of a war, said Government had taken no decision to put windfall profits into the Oil Stabilisation Fund.