How is CARICOM and CSME impacted? How about one Caribbean Sea!
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Ambassador to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Robert ‘Bobby’ Morris, has warned fishermen that in the absence of a new fishing agreement with Trinidad and Tobago, they must remain in Barbados’ territorial waters.
He said both countries are yet to conclude a fisheries deal, since the last one expired eight years ago, but assured that negotiation are near completion.
“What I can say is that protocol in draft form is complete in terms of where Barbados wants it to be,” he said Friday.
According to Morris, changes are expected in the pending new accord.
“The old agreement that Barbados was thinking about.. came to an end in 2006. And when we go to the table in terms of a fishing agreement, it would not necessarily take the same shape that existed at that time, because what happened in 2006 definitively was a clear statement that we cannot go into Trinidad’s Exclusive Economic Zone without an agreement with Trinidad.
“It is not a one-sided thing. Trinidad has to give us permission to come in there. Just as if they were coming into our (territorial) waters we would have to give them permission – a completely different thing from the old notion that we had a right to traverse the seas of the Caribbean, that we had equal rights to that zone that Trinidad had. So, it’s going to be a different ball game.”
For years Barbadian and Trinidadian fishermen have been wrangling over who has trespassed in whose territorial waters in pursuit of the now elusive flying fish, resulting in vessels occasionally being detained by coast guards.
“Nobody has the flying fish – neither Trinidad, nor Barbados. So, we are looking at the scientific issues and not only the legal issues, but we want to assure the people of Barbados that that [the fishing agreement] is still a matter of high importance,” Morris said.
