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“If ever there was a person that you would want at your side to fight any battle, Keith Rowley is one such person,” Barbados Prime Minister and Caricom chairman Mia Amor Mottley said last night as she led off the tributes paid to Prime Minister Rowley at the 48th meeting of the Heads of Caricom in Bridgetown, Barbados.

Noting that this Caricom summit would be Rowley’s last, Mottley said he had given four decades of service not just to Trinidad and Tobago but to the Caribbean community, not just as a prime minister, or political leader but his training and experience in geology and energy had been invaluable to Caricom’s considerations on a range of topics.

She said she was proud to have had him at her side when Caricom had to confront the issue of Venezuela and Juan Guaido (who had been recognised by the United States as the President of Venezuela), when “there was a determination to have a recognition of a change of head of government”.