US Diplomats in Caribbean "Not doing a good job": PM Browne

Antigua and Barbuda: Terming US Embassy in Bridgetown responsible for Antigua and Barbuda's unfavourable remarks in Human Rights 2020 report, Prime Minister Gaston Browne said that Diplomats are not doing enough to foster relations between the Caribbean region and the United States.

Browne explained Pointe FM on Saturday that the US Embassy had a duty to assure that correct information is supplied to the US Department of State regarding their multiple reports.

He also reprimanded the embassy staff for not giving enough to ensure that vaccines are available to Antigua and Barbuda and other nations in the Caribbean.

“What I want to say to them, the Embassy in Barbados, I understand they don’t like to hear when I talk like this, but I say this without fear or favour and I say this outwardly any enmity to the resident US Ambassador and her crew. She acknowledges I love her as a person but you understand what, in terms of managing the type of effective diplomatic relations among the Caribbean and the United States, I don’t believe they are doing a good job.”

“When they can perhaps operate with others in the State Department and put out things in the US Human Rights Report that not right, what they are doing is ruining the reciprocal relationship within the United States and nations here in the Caribbean,” Browne stated.

“They have a duty to guarantee that whatever information they document in these reports, that the information is accurate and correct.”

“And if is one nation that will always speak out regarding these types of inaccurate reports is Antigua and Barbuda,” he continued.

“And furthermore, we expect them through this period of a pandemic for them to also advocate on behalf of the Caribbean region. They live here, they too are at danger and they should be literally supporting us to push capital, to add the Caribbean and to get some vaccines ready and I do not see that kind of effort,” Browne told.

About the 2020 report, Browne asserted it was not true that he owned “several media outlets within the nation.” He said it was not true that “there is no free print media.”