Charles to Amery: 'Stop seeking credit for UNGA presidency'

Naparima MP Rodney Charles said Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Dr Amery Browne should not try to take credit for TT getting the presidency of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) as this country is running for the position unopposed.

In a release, Charles said according to UN rules, the vacancy for assembly president becomes available to the 33 members of the group of Latin American and Caribbean (GRULAC) countries every five years.

The presidency is rotated among the five geographic regions in the UN – Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern European, Latin American and Caribbean, and Western European and other states. He said the presidency is further rotated between Spanish-speaking members of GRULAC and those of Caricom.

“Since a Latin American member of GRULAC (an Ecuadorian) was elected president in 2018, the presidency is now (five years later) by convention available to a Caricom candidate.

"TT was nominated unopposed for this position in 2013, as the nominee of Caricom, because of ground work done on September 3, 2013 when on the instructions of Kamla Persad Bissessar, TT obtained the full GRULAC endorsement for its candidacy in 2023. Only if Caricom decides on another member state can TT’s nomination be in jeopardy. That is most unlikely.”

Charles said Browne “seemed blissfully unaware of that fact when, in a series of Facebook posts on March 31 and April 1, he stated the Government launched its campaign bid for the UNGA presidency.

"Only in the PNM can you launch a bid for something that was lobbied for and decided upon ten years ago. Of course TT will have to go through the motions and required protocols. But it is a done deal,” Charles said.

He claimed the presidency was a gift of the People’s Partnership administration and a seminal achievement of Persad-Bissessar's government.

“We understand Browne’s need to take credit for the work of the PP administration. At the very least he should be professional enough to provide all the facts and give credit where it is due.”

Charles also sent best wishes to Ambassador Dennis Francis who would take up the post of assembly president as TT’s UN head of mission. Caricom countries have been UNGA president on two occasions to date.

BROWNE FIRES BACK

However, in a response to Newsday, Browne said Charles should stop the dinosaur politics.

He said the candidature should not be a case for party squabbles or partisan rivalry but rather a further opportunity to advance "brand of TT" on a global stage.

“The official campaign launch last week in New York was used as a showcase for our excellent candidate, Ambassador Dennis Francis, who received his instrument of appointment as TT's permanent representative to the UN in New York in 2021.

"The social media coverage of the event, which appears to have caught the attention and envy of Charles, also focused on the way in which the event successfully captured the amazing diversity of TT, with doubles, steelpan, and tassa drumming. It is all about the nation,” Browne said.

He called on Charles to take a page from former foreign affairs minister Winston Dookeran, “who at least demonstrated some class in his comments on an important aspect of TT's foreign policy over the years.

"The truth is that our presidency bid and the official campaign launch last week are the result of consistent teamwork by sincere and hard-working diplomats and officers of TT who are not named Kamla or Amery, and who do not view important national initiatives in the petty, narrow, shallow way that Charles appears to see everything around him.

"His very warped view of our small but proud nation's place in the world will in no way affect TT work at the UN or anywhere else for that matter.”