DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les has urged the Gov­ern­ment to tread care­ful­ly as ten­sions rise be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela, warn­ing that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s stance could ex­pose the coun­try to re­tal­i­a­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les point­ed to re­marks by Venezuela’s De­fence Min­is­ter, Vladimir Padri­no López, who warned that any coun­try of­fer­ing the US a base for mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions would be seen as com­plic­it in ag­gres­sion. Ac­cord­ing to him, that threat can­not be tak­en light­ly.

“If you’re threat­en­ing to of­fer the Amer­i­cans a base in Trinidad, it means that you’re join­ing in with the Unit­ed States to at­tack Venezuela. The Venezue­lans are go­ing to re­tal­i­ate, and they’re go­ing to at­tack us. And that is quite clear to me,” he said.

US naval ves­sels and troops have been repo­si­tioned in the re­gion, a move Wash­ing­ton has ex­plic­it­ly linked to the fight against nar­co-traf­fick­ing emerg­ing from Venezuela. Gon­za­les said the sit­u­a­tion was no laugh­ing mat­ter, even though many cit­i­zens have joked on­line about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of war. He ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment’s pub­lic ex­pres­sions of sup­port for the US could car­ry dan­ger­ous con­se­quences.

Gon­za­les urged the Gov­ern­ment to “stay neu­tral and stay out of it” in or­der to avoid be­ing caught in a wider con­flict. He ar­gued that there was no oblig­a­tion to pub­licly back Wash­ing­ton or re­peat its po­si­tions, es­pe­cial­ly when such state­ments could make Trinidad and To­ba­go a tar­get.

“We keep talk­ing about the Caribbean should be a zone of peace. We don’t want any con­flict in the area. That is what should be the po­si­tion,” he said, echo­ing the lan­guage of diplo­mat­ic agree­ments that have guid­ed the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) for decades.

Mean­while, for­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne agreed that cit­i­zens should be con­cerned about what he de­scribed as “un­seem­ly ex­changes” be­tween T&T and Venezuela.

He ar­gued that the Prime Min­is­ter has tak­en her Gov­ern­ment and the na­tion in the wrong di­rec­tion in this en­tire mat­ter.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go’s stand­ing in the re­gion and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly has been in de­cline due to her de­ci­sion to re­place diplo­ma­cy and re­gard for the rule of law with her reck­less, cav­a­lier, and un­nec­es­sary de­ploy­ment of rhetoric and in­flam­ma­to­ry state­ments that have on­ly served to in­crease ten­sions across the bor­der and our re­gion,” he said.

Browne added that tra­di­tion­al­ly, T&T’s for­eign pol­i­cy has been an­chored in the prin­ci­ples of re­spect for do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al law. He lament­ed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar has not re­ferred to those prin­ci­ples.

“As Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son has main­tained from the in­cep­tion of this cri­sis, Trinidad and To­ba­go should avoid iso­lat­ing it­self from Cari­com on is­sues re­lat­ed to re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty, and the Prime Min­is­ter’s ear­ly dis­missal of the role of Cari­com was a big leap in the wrong di­rec­tion,” he said.

“We should avoid di­rect as­so­ci­a­tion with any ac­tions that are not clear­ly in keep­ing with do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al law, even as law­mak­ers in oth­er cap­i­tals ques­tion the le­gal­i­ty of re­cent strikes,” he added.

Browne said T&T should join with oth­er Cari­com states to guard the re­gion’s role as neu­tral, law­ful, and trust­wor­thy cus­to­di­ans of re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Mul­ti­ple at­tempts to get a re­sponse from For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers were un­suc­cess­ful.