Vincey PM: It’s a family quarrel

St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves yesterday likened the tensions between Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados to a family quarrel,  saying he was optimistic that mature leadership would bring a resolution. “These problems would be solved because the leaders are mature and wise and the institutions are sound,” he said, adding: “Don’t ever think we crumbling.” “When difficulties arise in the Caribbean...journalists start to say there is a crisis, Caricom mashup”. But he said when (British PM) Tony Blair and French president) Jacques Chirac are exchanging words across the English Channel, nobody says European Union is about to collapse. “You know why? We are still so colonially minded inside our region that we believe Europeans can settle disputes  among themselves with wisdom and maturity. But no not Caribbean leaders !(we think),” he said.

However, Gonsalves, who was at Whitehall for talks with Prime Minister Patrick Manning, said he really wanted to see a lowering of the harshness of the dialogue across the waters. “Husbands and wife, children and parents... there would always be difficulties. The question is how those difficulties are resolved,” he noted. Saying that the Caribbean had  good leaders, tolerant populations and institutions with depth and viability, Gonsalves called on journalists to look on Caribbean leaders with the same generosity they viewed European leaders. He said although there was “understandable island nationalisms, there was also a profound and deep Caribbean bond.” Pointing to himself, he said his mother and wife were Trinidadians and he had family across the Caribbean. “And so it is with Barbados and Trinidad,” he  asserted, adding: “For Christ sake, let us not run away with the idea that things are falling apart.”

Manning said despite the dispute between Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, the idea of a  political federation was alive and well, though it might suffer a temporary setback because of the current dispute. Manning had proposed a political union between Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada. Manning conceded that the situation which has developed with Barbados had now made the case for giving financial assistance to any Caricom member state in any area harder to sell to the Trinidad and Tobago population. But, he urged, people should not lose sight of the big picture and “not try to win a battle and lose a war.”

Saying that the objective was Caribbean integration, Manning cautioned against scuttling 30 years of hard work because there was a disagreement in one area. But Gonsalves stated that he did not come to Trinidad and Tobago to discuss the dispute between itself and Barbados. “I came to discuss Liat and air transport-things which were metallic and fly. Those (things) with flesh and blood and scales I leave to other people,” he said. He said the Caricom leaders were talking among themselves on the issue, “after all we don’t live on Mars...but none of us is out there as an honest broker or mediator.”