GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana –The Bu­reau of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) lead­ers has re­it­er­at­ed a call for “peace­ful di­a­logue” to en­sure sta­bil­i­ty in Venezuela, fol­low­ing the Unit­ed States’ in­va­sion of the South Amer­i­can coun­try and the de­ten­tion and ar­rest of its Pres­i­dent, Nico­las Maduro, on Sat­ur­day.

In a state­ment, the bu­reau, com­pris­ing St Kitts and Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ter­rance Drew, the Cari­com chair­man, Ja­maica Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness and St Lu­cian Prime Min­is­ter Phillip J Pierre, said they met on Sat­ur­day to dis­cuss the sit­u­a­tion.

Cari­com had ear­li­er is­sued a state­ment in which it said it “is ac­tive­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion, which is of grave con­cern to the re­gion with pos­si­ble im­pli­ca­tions for neigh­bour­ing coun­tries.”

“Cari­com will con­tin­ue to up­date the peo­ple of the re­gion as more in­for­ma­tion is re­ceived,” the two- para­graph state­ment added.

In their state­ment, the Cari­com Bu­reau, whose prin­ci­pal re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in­clude up­dat­ing the con­sen­sus of mem­ber states on is­sues de­ter­mined by the re­gion­al lead­ers and fa­cil­i­tat­ing im­ple­men­ta­tion of Cari­com de­ci­sions, said, “Cari­com is firm­ly com­mit­ted to the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of in­ter­na­tion­al law and mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism en­shrined in the UN Char­ter, in­clud­ing sov­er­eign­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty of States and re­spect for hu­man dig­ni­ty.”

“The re­gion re­it­er­ates its call for peace­ful di­a­logue through diplo­mat­ic chan­nels to en­sure Venezuela’s sta­bil­i­ty, good gov­er­nance, democ­ra­cy and pros­per­i­ty for the peo­ple of Venezuela,” the bu­reau said, adding that “Cari­com re­mains ready to sup­port all such ef­forts, in a spir­it of co­op­er­a­tion and mu­tu­al re­spect.”

”The bu­reau will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the mul­ti­fac­eted im­pact of this evolv­ing sit­u­a­tion and the im­pli­ca­tions for eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly air trav­el,” the state­ment said.

Fol­low­ing the US in­va­sion, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump told a news con­fer­ence the US is go­ing to “run” Venezuela “un­til such time as we can do a safe, prop­er and ju­di­cious tran­si­tion. He said US oil com­pa­nies will fix Venezuela’s “bro­ken in­fra­struc­ture” and “start mak­ing mon­ey for the coun­try.”

But in an ad­dress on state tele­vi­sion, Venezuela’s Vice-Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez said Maduro is the coun­try’s on­ly pres­i­dent.

Maduro has since been in­dict­ed in New York on drug and weapons charges. He has pre­vi­ous­ly de­nied be­ing the leader of a drug car­tel, de­spite the US plac­ing a ran­som of US$50 mil­lion on his head. Venezuela has de­clared a na­tion­al emer­gency, de­nounc­ing “ex­treme­ly se­ri­ous mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion.”

Mean­while, for­mer Guyana pres­i­dent Don­ald Ramo­tar has con­demned the US ac­tion, say­ing, “The bomb­ing of Venezuela and the kid­nap­ping of the coun­try’s pres­i­dent and first la­dy has tak­en us back to the days of gun­boat diplo­ma­cy. In­ter­na­tion­al laws are be­ing tram­pled on and to­tal­ly dis­re­gard­ed,” he said, adding that ‘sov­er­eign­ty of small and medi­um-sized coun­tries have be­come mean­ing­less and the US has emerged as a Su­per Colo­nial pow­er.

“Coun­tries in the re­gion have be­come ter­ri­fied and many will soon have to ex­press ‘sup­port’ for the US ac­tion,” he said, adding what oc­curred on Sat­ur­day, “is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the US and Is­rael’s ac­tion in Pales­tine and un­less the peace­ful and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic forces of our world unite, we will see more of the same.”

“Cu­ba and Iran may be next,” said the 75-year-old Ramo­tar, who served as head of state be­tween 2011 and 2015.