Bredren.
Let mi tell yuh someting.
If yuh invite di entire CARICOM to Kingston for a three-day meeting at di Hilton in New Kingston — which is ten minutes from yuh office, ten minutes from yuh house, and ten minutes from di residence yuh sleep in when yuh nuh feel like going home — and yuh skip all three days of public appearances…
Mi nuh care what yuh “private engagement” was, bredren.
Sunday: scheduled for di opening press scrum. No-show. “Private engagement.” Monday: scheduled for di mid-talks briefing. No-show. “Scheduling conflict.” Tuesday: scheduled to deliver di closing remarks. No-show. Issued a written statement at quarter to ten at night, after di closing dinner. Took no questions.
Bredren — at some point, dis stop being a scheduling problem and start being a strategy.
Di strategy is clear. Holness know di framework was going to fail. Holness know Trinidad was going to win. And Holness decided dat being publicly associated with a failure on di file Jamaica was supposed to lead was not a thing him want pinned to his name. So him took di “presidential silence” route. Let di Foreign Minister sit at di table. Let di Secretariat write di soft-language framework. Let di press call it whatever dem call it. And him stay home.
Di written statement at 9:47 PM is di tell. Yuh nuh issue a written statement at 9:47 PM unless yuh trying to make sure no follow-up question reach yuh before tomorrow morning. By tomorrow morning, di news cycle move on. Some other story burying it. Mi guarantee yuh by Friday di Kingston meeting going feel like a thing dat happened a month ago.
Now di PNP coming out criticizing him. Di PNP should criticize him. Dat is what opposition do. But mi want to ask di PNP a question: what would yuh have done differently? Sit at di table when Trinidad telegraph from di first day dat dem going veto? Take di L publicly to look brave? Mi nah hold mi breath waiting for dat answer either.
Di hard truth, bredren, is dat every PM in di region — past and present — would have done what Holness did. Some would have made di absence less obvious. Some would have at least appeared on Tuesday for di photograph. But di calculation — don’t be on di losing side of a Trinidad veto — di calculation is identical for everyone in di chair.
So mi nuh particularly mad at Holness. Mi mad at di game.
Di game where Trinidad block, di Chair calculate, di small islands eat di L, and di Bajan auntie still pay more for Trinidad biscuit than for Tesco biscuit shipped from England.
Tell mi how dat is integration, bredren.
Tell mi.