Send FATCA to foreign affairs JSC

This is the first major challenge since nationhood that TT faces to its stance on several foreign policy principles, practices and positioning as a player on the world stage since 1962.

I am totally amazed to witness the amount of ignorance being displayed on the obvious and overt violations of our international positions in treating with FATCA.

Our 55 years of establishing an enviable record in the practice of diplomacy and foreign relations engineered by our world-acclaimed pioneers post-1962 seems to have gone unnoticed.

FATCA must be referred to the Joint Select Committee on Foreign Affairs.

There we should get a judicious and insightful analysis of the sections of the Bill that adversely impact on/ compromise our foreign policies including the modalities being used by the US to put pressure to fast-track our legislative process and monopolise our parliamentary agenda.

Failure to do so will make TT a willing victim of US hegemony (the big stick approach) and cause it to lose some of its integrity and political independence, the practice of which was initiated by late prime minister Dr Eric Williams when he adopted a pro-Cuba policy during the period of American-inspired Cuban isolation.

As the FATCA saga unfolds, I am beginning to feel that as a former foreign policy practitioner I am a lonely voice crying in the wilderness.

STEPHEN KANGAL Caroni