International experts are confident of an aversion of war in Venezuela amidst its ongoing political crisis.
However, the possibility of a nuclear weapon exploding by error can occur.
With tensions heightening following US President Donald Trump’s recent sanctioning Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDSVA, some are claiming this could trigger a world war between the two leaders.
On Monday, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley joined a delegation led by Caricom’s chairman Dr Timothy Harris in New York where they held discussions with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to assist with the crisis in Venezuela where the Government of President Nicolas Maduro has been under international pressure to step down, while Juan Guaido had declared himself interim president of Venezuela.
Rowley expressed hope following the meeting that in the not too distant future there will be a significant improvement and diminishing of tensions in T&T’s neighbouring territory.
On a CNC3 programme on Monday titled “War Watch: Eye on the Americas” four experts—director of UWI Institute of International Relations Anthony Gonzales, Strategic Security consultant commander Garvin Heerah, Caracas correspondent Feliciano Reyna and director of the nuclear programme at the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Charles Johnson— gave their views on the ongoing issues.
Reyna admitted that in the last few days Venezuela’s oppression had increased with over 800 citizens being imprisoned, while there are 26 protest-related death and scores being injured.
Gonzales believes that the situation “has come to a head.”
With T&T’s sharing borders with Venezuela, Gonzales said it was not in our interest to break relations with them.
“But this can cause you some problems because the Americans, for example, want everybody to come on their side. It is expected that small countries like ours...our Caribbean brothers we don’t have much influence in that situation. We have to realise that we are not going to determine the outcome there.”
He felt that T&T has taken the correct position on the issue which we should stand firm on.
In conflict issues, Heerah said the first line of defence for any country was “self-preservation” through discussions.
“And therefore T&T has to ensure that we are exploring the issues in this increasing conflict. Our air and maritime space must be looked at. There must be strategic discussions with national security and Civil Aviation with our air space and air space management which are within our control.”
He said T&T cannot match nor compare itself to superpowers of the world-the US and Russia with military power.
With both sides of the spectrum having significant military power, Heerah said for Venezuela to reach a stage of military action “I honestly don’t think so.”
“I think it should not and probably won’t reach to the point of flexing of military powers yet. That exist out there, but will it reach to a point where there is actually going to be an intervention of military intervention I don’t think so.”
He said whoever sits in power in Venezuela, one of the concerns for interested parties was to tread carefully with the country’s oil and gas reserves.
“What we should be hearing from our decision makers is do or have we considered a plan to evacuate our citizens in Venezuela should this thing reach to a point where we have to evacuate our citizens to safe ground in T&T,” Heerah said.
Johnson said international law states that nuclear weapons are illegal to use according to a World Court ruling.
“But they left a large exemption...if nations believe that their sovereignty is in danger they are allowed to use the nuclear weapons according to the court decision.”
Asked what are the chances of Venezuela’s political tension turning into a war using nuclear weapons, Johnson admitted that the situation was not tense as the Cuban missile crisis, where the US and Soviet Union were in conflict with one another.
“This is more of a situation of proxies within Venezuela that is being supported by Russia and United States.”
Johnson pointed out that many vessels built by the US and Russians have dual capabilities (they can use conventional and nuclear weapons.)
As it stands neither the US nor Russia, Johnson said, are bound to disclose whether or not they carry nuclear weapons and no country in the world aside from New Zealand has a “Nuclear Free Zone.”
This in itself increases the possibility of weapons being launched in error.
He said the chance of a nuclear weapon exploding by error can occur.
“There have been a number of cases over a decade in which the deteriorating of an older weapon or some computer error has caused a situation where a nuclear weapon has malfunctioned and nearly launched a nuclear war.”