Trinidad has been an integration movement scoundrel for decades

Mar 27, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – Here is a little story for you about Guyana and Trinidad. My daughter left these shores without any knowledge of what went on for all the decades between Guyana and Trinidad. Her flight to London in 2018 was through Trinidad.
When she was returning home she asked me to arrange her ticket to in-transit through Barbados. Figure out for yourself why my daughter made that decision. She simply in-transit through Trinidad and did not want to do that again.
One of the great, enduring mysteries of this country is why six presidents – Desmond Hoyte, Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, Bharrat Jagdeo, Donald Ramotar and David Granger – tolerated Trinidad’s mauling of the foundation principles on which an integration movement rests.
No integration movement would ever tolerate one of its members behaving the way Trinidad has done for over 50 years. It is not that Trinidad’s non-compliance of CARICOM treaties has been episodic. It has been consistent for over half a century.
If you had a major player in the European Union as Trinidad is in CARICOM, the EU would have broken up long ago. The simple, graphic fact is that Trinidad has not been faithful to CARICOM and that cut across every government in Trinidad the past 50 years. No integration move would allow this.
Trinidad and Guyana’s relationship within CARICOM from 2022 onwards is going to break up CARICOM. The fact is Guyana should not tolerate any longer the illegal and dishonest conduct of Trinidad in CARICOM. For decades Guyana has had a trade imbalance that favours Trinidad.
Trinidad if it had its way, it would buy nothing from us even though comparatively speaking Guyana can feed Trinidad. They have ignored Guyanese products and have bought from non-CARICOM countries every conceivable item we could sell them. The list includes all fruits and vegetable, meats and agricultural products.
It does not matter what we manufacture here, Trinidad acts like a scoundrel in the integration movement. What it does is masks its rascality to claim our products are not up to their standards. This country can set up a poultry farm or a beef and pork farm taking in square miles that are larger than Trinidad itself. Yet this CARICOM sister nation has turned its back on our production for more than 50 years. They don’t buy our peppers. Yet we can have a pepper farm in Guyana that is larger than Trinidad itself.
Trinidad uses all the energy it has to guillotine Guyanese business ventures in Trinidad. Here is a story of which I have personal knowledge. After the market for Japanese reconditioned vehicles was expanding exponentially in Guyana, a Guyanese businessman decided to expand his car importation business to Trinidad. They ran him out within weeks. They have done that to dozens of Guyanese ventures the past 40 years.
At one time in its existence, a significant percentage of the income of Caribbean Airlines (CA) was from Guyana’s patronage. CA over the past 35 years has taken away the dignity of every Guyanese who has in-transited through Trinidad. No airline in the world has reserved dehumanising treatment for a nationality as CA has for Guyanese.
Can you imagine that six presidents of Guyana have allowed CA to treat Guyanese like this? And they mistreat Guyanese in the most brazen ways, denying Guyanese access to facilities that they grant other nationalities right in front of the eyes of Guyanese. What the current government needs to do is to forge relationships with other airlines that would result in direct flights to the rest of the world without stopping in Trinidad.
Can you imagine my daughter was just in-transit for less than half an hour and did not want to pass through Trinidad again? What did she see? I will tell you what she saw. It is an anti-Guyanese psyche that has been in existence for a long time in Trinidad. There are reasons for this which cannot be discussed in the remaining paragraphs.
I believe CARICOM is an invaluable Caribbean institution. The Caribbean Examination Council, the Caribbean Court of Appeal, West Indian cricket, among others, are too precious to this country. CARICOM must not be weakened, CARICOM countries need each other. But an integration movement cannot survive with a barefaced cheating member like Trinidad. It will collapse one day.
With a rising crescendo of the local content dispute, CARICOM’s existence may be in trouble. I don’t think any government in Guyana would be so idiotic to change its local content law to benefit Trinidad. I say change the local content Act to facilitate Jamaica or Barbados. Maybe even the Bahamas which took in hundreds of our teachers. But not a scoundrel like Trinidad.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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