T&T: It's an oil dispute; to hell with flying fish

It's good to be a right CaribPundit. I'd begun to speculate that the whole dispute was more about what was under the sea than what was in the sea, here, see the end of this, middle of this, for instance. Now to the Guardian's story.

Barbados is now calling on T&T to give an assurance that offshore energy blocks now up for bid, in what the Government said are local waters, are not located in any of the maritime areas now under dispute between the two countries.

Barbados Attorney General Mia Mottley made the request during a joint broadcast of Radio Trinidad 730AM’s “Hardline”, Sangeet 106FM’s “Panchayat” talk shows and the Voice of Barbados yesterday morning.

“Could the Trinidad Government please reassure the Government of Barbados...that the bids for 10 offshore blocks opened on the 14th of January this year... and due to be awarded on the 10th of March 2004, do not include any blocks or areas of water that are in the disputed territory between Barbados and T&T,” Mottley said.

At an international energy conference in Port-of-Spain last month, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said, “Government opened the 2003 competitive bid round (July 4, last year), with the publishing of a new Competitive Bidding Order and the bid was closed on January 14, 2004.”

Manning said the 10 blocks consisted of a mixture of shallow-water shelf blocks and deep-water blocks, located on the east and west coasts of Trinidad and the north and east coasts of Tobago.

Yesterday, Mottley conceded Barbados always sought to have maritime boundaries, which cover energy reserves, included in its 14-year-old bi-lateral negotiations with T&T for a fishing agreement.

“To the extent ...that this is a maritime delimitation dispute, all the rights that go with maritime delimitation stand to be considered.

Fishing, mineral rights (oil and natural gas), access to the sea bed, all of those things.”

No wonder PM Arthur went sneaking off to UNCLOS last November, since his goal might well be poaching on T&T's off-shore oil. It appears Arthur is hoping that the UN obtain for Barbados that which she has no right to. If AG Mottley can advise Bajan fishermen to follow the flying fish into Tobago's waters if they want, then the government of Barbados is also signaling that it will seize mineral rights, too. The question remains, why did Barbados feel that it had to come with a cocoa scorpion tack? The answer must be that these underhanded means were necessary because there is no legitimate right to the mineral rights to which Barbados would stake a claim.

It seems T&T have settled with that old predator Venezuela only to find a new predator, Barbados, waiting in the wings. Now, if the T&T Coastguard were willing to defend its waters against Bajan fishermen, what does the government of Barbados think T&T will do to defend its marine mineral rights?