As ten­sions flare be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States, the call from the Caribbean for di­a­logue and diplo­ma­cy comes not a mo­ment too soon. The pres­ence of a US war­ship in Port-of-Spain has deep­ened un­ease across the re­gion and am­pli­fied fears that the geopo­lit­i­cal con­test be­tween Wash­ing­ton and Cara­cas could spill in­to Caribbean wa­ters.

In this cli­mate of anx­i­ety and un­cer­tain­ty, the of­fer by Do­mini­ca, Bar­ba­dos and the wider Caribbean to act as in­ter­me­di­aries be­tween the two pow­ers must be wel­comed as both time­ly and nec­es­sary.

Speak­ing on Sun­day at the Bar­ba­dos Labour Par­ty’s an­nu­al con­fer­ence, Do­mini­ca’s Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit an­nounced that his coun­try, along with Bar­ba­dos and oth­ers in the re­gion, are pre­pared to fa­cil­i­tate di­a­logue be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela. His re­marks fol­lowed those of Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, who, the pre­vi­ous day, urged the re­gion to re­main a Zone of Peace and warned of the dan­gers posed by mil­i­tary es­ca­la­tion.

Mot­t­ley’s mes­sage was as forth­right as it was far­sight­ed. She re­mind­ed the con­fer­ence that Bar­ba­dos once host­ed a meet­ing that re­sult­ed in an his­toric pact be­tween the US and Venezuela—proof that even ad­ver­saries can find com­mon ground on Caribbean soil. Her ap­peal was not mere­ly rhetor­i­cal; it was a sober recog­ni­tion that any con­flict in this hemi­sphere would car­ry dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for small is­land states, whose economies and se­cu­ri­ty are al­ready stretched thin.

Prime Min­is­ter Sker­rit took PM Mot­t­ley’s call fur­ther. Quot­ing her ad­dress in the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment chat group, he urged re­gion­al lead­ers to stand firm on prin­ci­ples of peace, in­de­pen­dence, and mu­tu­al re­spect.

“We can­not cow­er un­der fear. We must speak truth to pow­er,” Sker­rit de­clared.

His words cap­tured the essence of the Caribbean’s his­tor­i­cal stance—one shaped by a lega­cy of colo­nial strug­gle, col­lec­tive diplo­ma­cy, and an un­wa­ver­ing be­lief in di­a­logue over de­struc­tion.

In of­fer­ing to me­di­ate, the Caribbean is not pre­sum­ing to set­tle the griev­ances be­tween the US and Venezuela. Rather, it is as­sert­ing its moral au­thor­i­ty as a re­gion that has long val­ued diplo­ma­cy, co­op­er­a­tion, and peace­ful co­ex­is­tence. The Caribbean’s voice may be small in glob­al terms, but its cred­i­bil­i­ty as an hon­est bro­ker is sig­nif­i­cant. Its na­tions are not aligned with any mil­i­tary bloc and have con­sis­tent­ly cham­pi­oned mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism, as seen in Cari­com’s unit­ed re­spons­es to crises in Haiti and else­where.

The al­ter­na­tive—si­lence or pas­siv­i­ty—would be far more dan­ger­ous. A mil­i­tary clash so near our shores would threat­en trade, dis­place pop­u­la­tions, and desta­bilise al­ready frag­ile economies. It would al­so un­der­mine decades of work po­si­tion­ing the Caribbean as a bas­tion of sta­bil­i­ty in an in­creas­ing­ly volatile world.

This mo­ment, then, is one for de­ci­sive and prin­ci­pled lead­er­ship. The will­ing­ness of Mot­t­ley, Sker­rit and oth­ers to step for­ward re­flects not on­ly courage but a deep un­der­stand­ing of what is at stake. The Caribbean’s des­tiny must nev­er be shaped by the am­bi­tions of larg­er pow­ers.

As Sker­rit right­ly not­ed, “We solve prob­lems by dis­cus­sions, by di­a­logue, with diplo­ma­cy.”

Those are not just words—they are the lifeblood of re­gion­al sur­vival. The Caribbean must con­tin­ue to speak, act and lead as a Zone of Peace.

In a world tee­ter­ing to­ward reg­u­lar con­flicts, it is the steady voice of rea­son that of­ten pre­vents cat­a­stro­phe.