Editorial | Trinidad and Tobago’s wrong posture

It is not clear what the Trinidad and Tobago government intended to signal by reserving its position on America’s naval build-up in the southern Caribbean Sea and Washington’s implicit threat of direct military action against Venezuela.

However, The Gleaner welcomes the declaration by the rest of the members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) of their wish for the region to remain a zone of peace, as well as their reiteration of “the importance of dialogue and engagement towards the peaceful resolution of disputes and conflict”.

We agree, too, with the community’s affirmation of its unequivocal support for “the territorial integrity of countries in the region” and the right of the region’s citizens to pursue their livelihoods in safety.

These sentiments apply as much to ongoing territorial dispute between Guyana and Venezuela (Venezuela claims the western two-thirds of Guyana), as to the political dispute between the United States and Venezuela. Indeed, there are lessons in this principled position for President Nicolás Maduro’s government in Venezuela.

What, however, was missing from the statement by the CARICOM leaders after their virtual summit on Thursday, was a specific position on Washington’s request of community members Antigua and Barbuda, and Grenada to establish satellite listening posts in their territories, ostensibly to support the American naval operations in the southern Caribbean Sea.

Given the tenor of their statement, the political answer of the majority (including those who were asked) would be ‘no’. In any event, a country’s of America’s technological capabilities would hardly require radar systems either in Antigua and Barbuda or Grenada to enhance its communication capacities in the area.

ERODE CARICOM IDEAL

The only logical explanation for the request would be a geopolitical manoeuvre by the the United States to erode the CARICOM ideal of non-alignment and of the Caribbean as a zone of peace, while making the requested parties directly complicit in a hot war, should hostilities erupt between the United States and Venezuela.

Relations between the United States and Venezuela have been tense for nearly two decades over Washington’s opposition to the leftist governments that have held power in Caracas. They have worsened under President Maduro, whom the United States and some of its Western allies cast as illegitimate, claiming that he stole elections and is engaged in authoritarian rule.

But under the Donald Trump administration the United States has grown increasingly hostile to left-wing and left-of-centre governments in the Americas. Venezuela is among those that have fallen directly into Washington’s sights.

The US revived drug trafficking allegations against President Maduro, claiming that he operated a narco-state, which facilitated the smuggling of narcotics into the United States.

Indeed, Mr Trump has designated at least one Venezuelan gang as a terrorist organisation. At the same time, he has authorised the US armed forces to treat drug traffickers as combatants, subject to attacks like soldiers on the battlefield, not subject to the due process normally afforded to suspected criminals.

To back up these actions, Mr Trump dispatched a large naval force to the southern Caribbean Sea near Venezuela, bolstered by a build-up of military assets in Puerto Rico. Since early September, US forces have blown up at least five vessels in international waters in the Caribbean, mostly near Venezuela, killing at least 29 people.

At the start, the Trinidad and Tobago prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar gave full-throated support to the Americans, urging the United States to kill the alleged drug smugglers “violently”. She also went to the United Nations to declare the notion of the Caribbean as a zone of peace to a ‘false ideal’.

GROWN FEARFUL

Ms Persad-Bissessar’s political appetite for the free-range killing of alleged drug runners in the Caribbean Sea might have been tempered by reports that two Trinidadian fishermen were among the victims. Fishers in her country, which is seven miles from Venezuela, have grown fearful of going to sea, concerned that that could become casualties of the American action.

Similar anxieties have arisen elsewhere in the Caribbean, including Jamaica in the northern Caribbean, over 900 nautical miles from Venezuela.

Notably, Jamaica, whose prime minister, Andrew Holness, has promoted a “global war” on gangs, would have been among the supporters of the CARICOM statement.

Dr Holness had added a proviso to his advocacy for a war on gangs: that it should be bound by international law and that its conduct in the Caribbean should be in “coordination and collaboration” with the countries of the region.

CARICOM asserted that position, making clear their “continued commitment to fighting narco-trafficking and the illegal trade in small arms and light weapons which adversely affect” the Caribbean.

“They underscored that efforts to overcome these challenges should be through ongoing international cooperation and within international law,” the CARICOM statement said.

It is difficult to understand what was so difficult in these concepts for the government of Trinidad and Tobago to understand that it reserved its position on the CARICOM declaration.

Perhaps clarity being awaited by Port of Spain is a few more Trinidad and Tobago citizens being killed without due process. What Ms Persad-Bissessar should appreciate, though, is that spirited talk doesn’t make her strong. Or even appear so.

For President Maduro CARICOM’s principled position on territorial integrity and rule of law, and the community’s offer to assist in dialogue to settle disputes, should be an inspiration for his approach to Venezuela’s claim to Guyana’s Essequibo region.