Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Cari­com and For­eign Af­fairs min­is­ters who have sought a meet­ing with the Unit­ed States on its mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment in the re­gion are await­ing a re­ply and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s strong stance on the US pres­ence has been slammed by Ja­maica’s Glean­er news­pa­per in an ed­i­to­r­i­al.

This, as US-Venezuela ten­sions con­tin­ue ris­ing af­ter the US’ mil­i­tary pres­ence in the re­gion lead­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al coali­tion—of which T&T is a part—against drug car­tels. Last week, US mis­siles de­stroyed boat al­leged­ly car­ry­ing drugs, killing 11. The ves­sel was linked to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua crim­i­nal net­work.

Sub­se­quent re­ports of Venezue­lan mil­i­tary air­craft fly­ing over US war­ships two days in a row were met with US moves to send ten stealth fight­er jets to the re­gion this week.

US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump al­so warned that Venezue­lan air­craft would be shot down if they re­peat­ed fly­overs and “Venezuela would be in trou­ble.”

Trump has pre­vi­ous­ly side­stepped query on whether the US mis­sion is ac­tu­al­ly cen­tred on Venezue­lan regime change, as Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro says. Yes­ter­day, when asked by a re­porter if he was con­sid­er­ing at­tack­ing Venezuela, Trump, said, “Well, you’re gonna find out.”

Top Venezue­lan of­fi­cials dis­missed that lat­est po­si­tion as, “pro­pa­gan­da, they (US) won’t do a thing mil­i­tar­i­ly against us ...”

Last week, Cari­com for­eign min­is­ters sent their let­ter to the US seek­ing no­tice on ac­tions that will im­pact the re­gion. They re­quest­ed con­tin­ued di­a­logue around the US’ re­gion­al pres­ence. Cari­com Coun­cil of For­eign Min­is­ters chair­man Dr Den­zel Dou­glas (St Kitts For­eign Min­is­ter) signed the let­ter.

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia con­firmed from re­gion­al sources that the let­ter sought a meet­ing to dis­cuss the crit­i­cal is­sues, “... Of course, recog­nis­ing the strong views of T&T’s Gov­ern­ment.”

“That in­clud­ed the po­si­tions of the Prime Min­is­ter and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter es­pe­cial­ly demon­strat­ing their de­ter­mined fight against the hemi­spher­ic nar­co-trade, with the arms and vi­o­lence as­so­ci­at­ed with this phe­nom­e­non. We asked for con­tin­ued di­a­logue with the US in deal­ing with this and oth­er is­sues which are quite top­i­cal for our re­gion­al states at this time,” the Cari­com source said.

Apart from T&T and Guyana’s sup­port for the US’ ini­tia­tive, Fran­cis Fon­se­ca, the For­eign Min­is­ter of Be­lize (which is a Cari­com mem­ber), al­so wel­comed the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s an­ti-nar­co-traf­fick­ing moves.

Not­ing the Caribbean’s pride for be­ing a zone of peace, Fon­se­ca said he knew that with­in Cari­com’s com­mu­ni­ty there is con­cern about what is tak­ing place. He said the is­sue may more be about com­mu­ni­ca­tion and know­ing what is oc­cur­ring.

Fon­se­ca added, “We’ve had that dis­cus­sion in Cari­com, which is seek­ing to en­gage with the US gov­ern­ment so we can be bet­ter in­formed on what they’re do­ing, as our com­mit­ment is to en­sure the Caribbean re­mains a zone of peace.”

Re­gion­al lead­ers are yet to is­sue any Cari­com state­ment on the US pres­ence. A num­ber of lead­ers were at­tend­ing the Africa-Cari­com sum­mit in Ethiopia yes­ter­day.

UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly meet­ing ahead

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who’s held her po­si­tion in the face of crit­i­cism, last Fri­day told Ganesh Ut­sav devo­tees that one has to have “bel­ly” to stand up and fight dis­crim­i­na­tion, in­jus­tice and wrong­do­ing.

Yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar didn’t re­ply to texted query on if she plans at­tend­ing the up­com­ing high-lev­el week of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly’s 80th ses­sion and if she would re­in­force to the UN­GA’s glob­al au­di­ence, T&T’s po­si­tion on the US mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment and this coun­try’s prob­lems with crime, mur­ders, gangs and the in­flow of guns from the US side.

The UN high lev­el ses­sion oc­curs over Sep­tem­ber 23-27 in New York. The theme is “Bet­ter To­geth­er: 80 years and more for peace, de­vel­op­ment and hu­man rights.”

The US-Venezuela is­sue, which has gripped in­ter­na­tion­al head­lines, was ex­pect­ed to be part of in­for­mal con­ver­sa­tion “buzz” at the Com­mon­wealth Par­lia­men­tary As­so­ci­a­tion’s con­fer­ence in The Ba­hamas. A T&T del­e­ga­tion was ex­pect­ed to at­tend but Gov­ern­ment sources in­di­cat­ed fund­ing wasn’t ap­proved.