IN sharp contrast to media reports and images of the public relations choreography between the foreign minister of Jamaica, AJ Nicholson, and his Trinidad and Tobago counterpart Winston Dookeran over two days of meetings and a shared press conference in Kingston last week, political problems appeared to be brewing in Port of Spain as this column was being written, with a likely casualty being that country’s minister of national security, Gary Griffith.

Betraying a surprising lack of political maturity as a Cabinet minister with impressive academic qualifications who had previously served as personal security adviser to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Senator Griffith went public last Wednesday with a sharp rebuke of Dookeran for his engagement with Nicholson “without first consulting me…”

According to Minister Griffith, the circumstances that resulted in the hurriedly arranged meeting between Nicholson and Dookeran in Kingston — at the invitation of the former — had much more to do with matters pertaining to national/regional security than a threatened trade war between Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. Seemingly angry at not being personally involved in the meeting that took place in Kingston, Minister Griffith opted to make his media intervention without bothering to wait for Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar’s regular Cabinet meeting on Thursday and without seeking to benefit from the “agreed minutes” of the Nicholson/Dookeran meetings that — from all reports — were quite productive for new initiatives to avoid rows over bilateral trade as well as recurring immigration problems for Jamaican nationals in T&T.

It is the informed understanding of this columnist that the minutes reflected a mutual desire to ensure arrangements are in place, including frequent consultations, as necessary — at ministerial and technical levels — on pertinent trade, economic, immigration, labour-related and security matters that would be consistent with the pursuit of serious efforts designed to improve and strengthen relations of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

ISSUES ADDRESSED

Among the specific issues addressed were hassle-free movement of Jamaicans into Trinidad and Tobago, and, relatedly, implications of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruling involving Barbados and Jamaican Shanique Myrie.

In this context, the meeting reportedly benefited from a November 29 meeting of Caricom’s Legal Affairs Committee (LAC) in relation to the implications of the CCJ’s judgement.

Recognition was also given to the appeals process, as raised by the CCJ, involving aggrieved Caricom nationals in general who are denied entry by any member state of the community.

Improved co-operation between Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago immigration authorities were discussed with a commitment for direct involvement, as necessary, with relevant ministries of national security, foreign affairs as well as diplomatic missions.

Mutual satisfaction with the outcome of their meetings — described by Minister Dookeran at a media briefing as “quite remarkable” — was to result in an agreement to have a similar second round of consultations in Port of Spain during the first quarter of next year.

Both Nicholson and Dookeran had moved with alacrity to discourage any initiative for an organised trade boycott, conscious as they are of the inter-dependence of their national economies and the burden of legal implications for violating the Caricom treaty that guarantee free trade in commodities clearly identified as originating from a partner state.

REQUIRED COMMITMENT

Question of relevance is whether not just Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, but all member countries of Caricom will now better demonstrate required commitment to protect not just treaty-based rights to free trade and services, but reveal firm commitment to upholding the fundamental rights of community citizens to hassle-free intra-regional travel and, consequently, curb the awful, distressing experiences of nationals from partner states being humiliated and deported from ports of entry.

In relation to the likely political fallout over Minister Griffith’s public disagreement with Dookeran for not “consulting” him prior to travelling to Jamaica, he needs to reflect on a few basic points and temper his apparent grievance.

First, following evident private consultations at prime ministerial level between Jamaica’s Portia Simpson Miller and T&Ts Persad-Bissessar, Nicholson formally invited Dookeran for a meeting in Kingston.

Amid the then widening emotional calls for a boycott of trade with T&T, Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar advised her foreign minister to accept the invitation and prepare for serious dialogue, since the issues of contention could and should be sensibly resolved in the interest of strengthened relations.

Surely, Minister Griffith would have been aware of these developments and the shared anxieties by both administrations and corporate entities in Kingston and Port of Spain to defuse conflicts in favour of sensible, mutually satisfactory relations between these two major partners of Caricom.

And why go public with his surprising verbal swipe at his ministerial colleague — one of the most experienced and influential ministers of the People Partnership administration — without, I assume, first communicating with his prime minister?

Is there more in the mortar than the proverbial pestle? Perhaps the answer may come, in whatever form, before you read today’s column.