In the world outside Trinidad and Tobago, which is closer to South America than the Caribbean, the leader of Trinidad has been promoting the American intervention in the Caribbean and providing material support for the Trump administration maritime assassinations as well as their other plans.
Better to be on the inside looking out, than the outside looking in, maybe.
CARICOM has been silent as lambs as the first real test of unity has splintered into silent, self serving behaviour. Unsurprising, as many of their citizens disagree with the extrajudicial killings and American expansion in this hemisphere, they just keep quiet about it.
My family, like many others with interests in the United States, disagree with the Trump administration and their policies, just quietly or not on social networks, the way they like it.
So what is the way forward if the CARICOM islands do not take action?
Throughout the world when governments fail to take action, the people take to the streets and it often results in regime and policy change. This is unlikely to come from Trinidad whose use of the streets is limited to the excesses of Carnival, not government protests, and the occasional Soca song. Perhaps this February there will be a colourful display or paper mache icon of the new, but temporary Caribbean American leader, by her unified country.
Regrettably, it is not Mia Mottley. She cannot paddle this ship alone.
They are also not untouchable like the Cayman Islands that holds trillions in US treasury instruments as well as facilitating low or zero tax business ventures. Too close to home.
Concerned Caribbean citizens who are not ignorant or uncaring of their region, must stop sitting on the fence, and take a position on their next product purchase, next business venture, next trip and ultimately, next vote.
It is either leave a convoluted future to your children or become a serial apologist.
Canada has done that. Stores stripped bare of American product, snow birds going elsewhere.
Sometimes the toughest example is the one to follow.
Notes
https://www.hedgeweek.com/basis-trades-obscure-hedge-fund-holdings-of-1-4tn-in-us-treasuries
Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer from the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88.
His views are his own.
