Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro re­voked a de­c­la­ra­tion to evict US na­tion­als from the South Amer­i­can coun­try.

This move came as the US at­tempt to sway UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil for sup­port was met with a luke­warm re­sponse. The body failed to take ac­tion on the Venezue­lan cri­sis be­cause of deep di­vi­sions among coun­tries. There is now a new de­mand of call­ing fresh elec­tions in eight days.

Venezuela For­eign Min­is­ter Jorge Ar­reaza scoffed at the de­mand.

Venezuela’s For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry said that it is now ne­go­ti­at­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of a US In­ter­ests Of­fice in Venezuela and will al­low US Em­bassy per­son­nel to re­main in the coun­try while talks take place, re­vok­ing an or­der for all per­son­nel to leave the coun­try by yes­ter­day.

Ac­cord­ing to in­ter­na­tion­al re­ports, the state­ment said that talks about an in­ter­est sec­tion will have a 30-day lim­it and if no agree­ment is reached em­bassy per­son­nel will then have to leave the coun­try.

Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro had bro­ken diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with the Unit­ed Sates on Wednes­day and had giv­en em­bassy per­son­nel three days to leave the coun­try. But the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion had re­fused to obey his di­rec­tive, ar­gu­ing that Maduro is no longer Venezuela’s le­git­i­mate pres­i­dent.

The new de­ci­sion by Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment puts off a po­ten­tial con­flict be­tween both coun­tries.

At the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil meet­ing, the Unit­ed States urged all na­tions to end Venezuela’s “night­mare” and sup­port op­po­si­tion leader Juan Guai­do while Rus­sia ac­cused the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion of at­tempt­ing “to en­gi­neer a coup d’etat” against Maduro—a re­flec­tion of the world’s deep di­vi­sions over the cri­sis in the em­bat­tled Latin Amer­i­can coun­try.

Opin­ions clash

Back home, this coun­try’s non-in­ter­ven­tion­ist stance in the Venezue­lan cri­sis got sup­port yes­ter­day from vary­ing quar­ters, and there was grow­ing crit­i­cism against the US Am­bas­sador’s state­ment.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts and labour en­ti­ties crit­i­cised US Am­bas­sador’s state­ment about Gov­ern­ment’s non-in­ter­ven­tion on the Venezue­lan cri­sis.

And there was al­so crit­i­cism for the Op­po­si­tion’s move to recog­nise Venezue­lan Na­tion­al As­sem­bly head Juan Guai­do as Venezuela’s in­ter­im pres­i­dent.

A clash of opin­ions de­vel­oped on Fri­day be­tween US Am­bas­sador Joseph Mon­del­lo and Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley af­ter T&T’s non-in­ter­ven­tion­ist stance on the Venezue­lan is­sue was echoed by Cari­com.

Mon­del­lo said Guai­do has the US’ full sup­port and he found Gov­ern­ment’s state­ments “... recog­nis­ing the un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and il­le­git­i­mate gov­ern­ment of Nico­las Maduro to be deeply con­cern­ing.”

Mon­del­lo as­sured he and the Em­bassy were “com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions” with the gov­ern­ment.

The state­ment brought an im­me­di­ate fiery re­sponse from Row­ley who said he took um­brage at the Am­bas­sador’s pub­lic state­ment crit­i­cis­ing gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions “...As we take ac­tion in pro­tec­tion of the in­ter­est of the peo­ple of T&T. ”

Op­po­si­tion sup­ports Guai­do

The same day Mon­del­lo spoke, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she recog­nised Guai­do as Pres­i­dent and called for fresh elec­tions in Venezuela.

The com­ments arose yes­ter­day af­ter T&T’s po­si­tion re­gard­ing the cri­sis next door in Venezuela as­sumed greater spot­light fol­low­ing state­ments from the Prime Min­is­ter and the Op­po­si­tion.

“The US’ ‘con­cern’ about T&T is opaque. It was be­ing crit­i­cal about the Gov­ern­ment’s stance and in a pub­lic sense. The in­ten­tion was to in­tim­i­date (Dr Kei­th) Row­ley to take a po­si­tion more aligned with the US’. I’m on the Prime Min­is­ter’s side in this. T&T has a sov­er­eign voice and we have ex­pressed our po­si­tion very clear­ly. It’s not in ac­cor­dance with the US’, but that hap­pens with in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions,” said Dr Win­ford James.

“If reper­cus­sions de­vel­op, it would be out of pet­ti­ness and spite, not re­spect for T&T’s sov­er­eign­ty. The US seems to say their po­si­tion must be ours - we can’t run a sov­er­eign gov­ern­ment that way,” he added.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath was al­so sup­port­ive of the Gov­ern­ment’s stance.

“I sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion. As Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said, we are next door to Venezuela. We have to be care­ful how we treat with mat­ters of self-de­clared ap­point­ment—Juan Guai­do at this point doesn’t have le­git­i­ma­cy. So we should not be bul­lied by the US which has al­ways played Big Broth­er roles, try­ing to tell the re­gion how they should sup­port. It’s in a sense bul­ly­ing. The US tends to sup­port democ­ra­cy when it suits their needs,” he said.

“I’m not sure at this point -un­til the sto­ry un­folds—of the reper­cus­sions of Dr Row­ley’s state­ments to the US Am­bas­sador. Dr Row­ley could have been a lot more diplo­mat­ic in re­sponse, but he’s not one for diplo­ma­cy and some­times needs guid­ance,” he added.

He was crit­i­cal of the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s recog­ni­tion of Guai­do as Venezuela’s leader.

Joint Trade Union Move­ment

“The US Em­bassy’s state­ment is an at­tempt to in­tim­i­date our gov­ern­ment in­to chang­ing their po­si­tion even though they have no moral au­thor­i­ty to do so. It’s the lat­est im­pe­ri­al­ist ac­tion in (US) his­to­ry. The Op­po­si­tion’s state­ments have dis­cred­it­ed them­selves. How could Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, a for­mer de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed head of Gov­ern­ment, at­tack the sov­er­eign process of a sov­er­eign na­tion? The Op­po­si­tion should know every coun­try has the right to de­ter­mine and con­trol its own af­fairs—they’re mere­ly par­rots of Trump’s back­ward ag­gres­sive for­eign pol­i­cy.”

OP­PO­SI­TION MP DR BHOE TEWARIE

“The fact the US am­bas­sador felt com­pelled to make a state­ment should be of con­cern to the Prime Min­is­ter and Gov­ern­ment. Gen­er­al­ly, an am­bas­sador would be more re­strained. I’m not sure if the Prime Min­is­ter’s deal­ing with the mat­ter the way he did was the best way to ad­dress this. In things like these, it’s bet­ter not to widen gaps and to find com­mon ground even if you have a dif­fer­ence of opin­ion.”

“In any case, both will have to nav­i­gate the ba­sis for rap­proche­ment. Gov­ern­ment has to nav­i­gate their way through, and Dr Row­ley would do well to recog­nise T&T’s mul­ti­ple in­ter­ests in this mat­ter with mul­ti­ple part­ners notwith­stand­ing the prox­im­i­ty of Venezuela and the in­ten­si­ty of the pres­sure of cur­rent con­di­tions there. Gov­ern­ment’s been too slow, in­flex­i­ble and not strate­gi­cal­ly re­spon­sive with the un­fold­ing of the cri­sis.”