Dear Editor,
Reference is made to your editorial “Our CARICOM friends and the referendum” (Nov 20), critiquing the feeble, indirect response of the PMs of Barbados and St. Vincent to Venezuela’s aggression against our country when queried by reporters about their position on the conflict. Their media remarks did not condemn Venezuela’s behaviour and PM Dr Ralph Gonsalves made more reference to the March 2, 2020 attempted rigging of the elections than on the border matter about which he was asked. A week earlier, CARICOM Secretariat issued a strong statement condemning Venezuela’s aggression.
The PMs of both Barbados and St Vincent as well as of several others including Antigua (Gaston Browne), Dominica (Roosevelt Skerrit), Jamaica (Andrew Holness), among others, are in a dilemma in taking sides because they are also friendly with Venezuela and seem to want to dance among or between political raindrops in order not to irreversibly damage relations.
Venezuela was or has been kind to them on generous oil concessions and loans under the PetroCaribe Oil scheme going back under President Hugo Chavez some two decades ago. Although they are sister countries in Caricom and feel obligated to support Guyana, and they have voiced support, Barbados and St Vincent and other Caricom allies have benefited financially perhaps more from Venezuela than from Guyana. They maintain very cordial relations with our threatening neighbour on the West. That being factual, and given that they would like to maintain their relationship with Venezuela, they should use their soft power influence to rein in President Maduro on the scheduled December 3 referendum on Essequibo and his other actions on the border as well as his government’s bellicose statements against Guyana. They should call on Maduro government to respect international law and the UN Charter on the border matter.
Yours Truly,
Vishnu Bisram
