ST Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves Wednesday criticised the decision by the Trinidad-based Caribbean Airlines (CAL) to expand its operations into the Eastern Caribbean, saying it was doing so in contravention of the treaty governing the Caribbean Community (Caricom) trading bloc.

Speaking at the end of a shareholders meeting of the regional airline, LIAT, Gonsalves said that while he was not against any form of competition nor was he in favour of any division within Caricom it was vitally important to protect the interest of the Antigua-based airline.

“If somebody wants to come into this region and take out LIAT from the air and replace it with a monopoly based outside of the shareholders of this subregion, there is a problem. Bear this in mind, while we have to pay US$102 a barrel right now for aviation fuel, CAL they pay US$50 dollars because they are subsidised by the government of Trinidad and Tobago.

“The rules of Caricom, the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and the multilateral treaty which was signed way back in 1996…signed by the heads of government at the time…deal with the issue of fair competition,” said Gonsalves, who chaired the LIAT shareholders meeting that was attended by his Barbados colleague Freundel Stuart and the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Baldwin Spencer.

He said Article 15 of the revised Treaty makes provision for the establishment of tariffs. The revised Caricom treaty also addresses similar questions in relation to subsidies.

“The Trinidadians call it a hedge, it is a not a hedge, it is a subsidy. Let us call the animal by the name for what it is. So you want to come into my space with subsidized fuel and take me out of the air. Well, that is not permissible and at the end of that you will then decide at what price you will charge and which services you will have.”

The St Vincent and the Grenadines prime minister said that discussions had been held with CAL on January 16 last year on the possibility of exploring a nexus.

“Frankly, I find it very strange that officials from the government of Trinidad and Tobago and CAL could be talking about LIAT as though they own it, that they will come into the Eastern Caribbean and it is only a matter of time that they take over LIAT”.

He said the Trinidad-based airline has already started test runs and as minister of civil aviation for St Vincent and the Grenadines as well as the prime minister with responsibility for Civil Aviation matters within the quasi-Caricom Cabinet “nobody has told me anything, they have not told any other prime minister anything.

“Nobody has written me or told me anything. I mean let’s make it plain…I did not sign on to the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas to be somebody’s colony, or somebody’s metropolitan centre. That’s not the bargain which we made, so I want to put down my marker very clear on this subject” he said recalling when BWIA was operational, there were daily flights going into Barbados.

“But when it became CAL (they) did not tell Barbados nor anybody else in the islands that they will be cutting the number of flights to one per week on a Saturday. So just like I am not prepared to put the future of air transport of St Vincent and the Grenadines and the Eastern Caribbean in the hands of (Allen) Stanford (the disgraced Texan billionaire) I am not prepared to put it in the hands of anybody else who presuming they are a metropolitan centre and we are colonial outposts.

“I am not having that at all,” said Gonsalves who recalled a discussion with the former CAL chairman, Arthur Lok Jack last year that “any involvement of CAL in LIAT would not take account of the fact that these are tourism economies.

“He said he is in the business to run a commercial airline. So he will run a commercial airline without consideration for own economic circumstances and so forth…you understand why I had to stand up and have our interest protected.

“So this is not a straight forward matter. I have no problem with competition for LIAT, none whatsoever, in fact I can’t stop another airline coming in on the basis of the multilateral treaty, but you have to come in fairly. You have to come in with fair competition. If you are interested in us doing something together we have to talk.”

Gonsalves said that LIAT had been able to survive the threat of Stanford when he introduced his Caribbean Star and Caribbean Sun into the Eastern Caribbean.

”I told him if money was everything the Americans would not have lost the war in Vietnam. Money is never everything. People are loyal to LIAT and they have followed the leadership of these three governments and if we did not hold the firm line on Caribbean Star and Stanford we would not have had a LIAT.”

He said he while LIAT would want to have a “nexus” with CAL, “we would like to have a cooperation with CAL, but you can’t come and say you are going to absorb us and treat it as though it is a fait accompli.

“I don’t know where these men and women et these ideas from. They don’t own LIAT, they don’t own St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda and Barbados. Since when they can talk like this.

“No it means we have to discuss this matter sensibly with one another,” he said, adding that he “is fortified by the spirit by my colleague heads” who attended the meeting here.