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Monday, May 19, 2025

Padarath calls on Govt to mediate in dispute

by

532 days ago
20231204

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As ten­sions es­ca­late be­tween Venezuela and Guyana over the Es­se­qui­bo bor­der dis­pute, Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath has called on the Gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene as a me­di­a­tor and de­vel­op a com­pre­hen­sive na­tion­al strat­e­gy to ad­dress the loom­ing threat of war.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Sat­ur­day night, Padarath high­light­ed the need for T&T to pre­pare in the event of war.

He un­der­scored Venezuela’s dis­re­gard for the rul­ing of the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ), which un­equiv­o­cal­ly di­rect­ed Venezuela last Fri­day to re­frain from any ac­tions chal­leng­ing Guyana’s es­tab­lished con­trol over the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion.

“The prox­im­i­ty of Venezuela as our near­est neigh­bour, mere­ly sev­en miles across the wa­ter, makes this deeply con­cern­ing for T&T,” Padarath said.

He point­ed to Venezuela’s ref­er­en­dum yes­ter­day, de­spite the ICJ rul­ing, as an in­di­ca­tion that ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion for war is un­der­way.

“In light of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of war, there should be na­tion­al plan­ning and na­tion­al pol­i­cy. We see the eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela and the in­flux of mi­grants and refugees who are com­ing here. We saw thou­sands of mi­grants in the past year or two. There should be some clear pol­i­cy on how we treat bor­der pro­tec­tion,” Padarath ex­plained.

He not­ed: “The past in­flux of mi­grants un­der­scores the ur­gency for a clear bor­der pro­tec­tion pol­i­cy.”

Padarath al­so pressed the Gov­ern­ment to ar­tic­u­late strate­gies to mit­i­gate po­ten­tial food short­ages and en­sure na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in the face of im­pend­ing con­flict.

He crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s si­lence on the mat­ter, ad­mon­ish­ing the ab­sence of re­as­sur­ance for cit­i­zens re­gard­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­gency plans should a war erupt.

“It’s un­ac­cept­able for the Gov­ern­ment to re­main silent in the face of this im­mi­nent threat. Prepa­ra­tion for any even­tu­al­i­ty is im­per­a­tive, con­sid­er­ing the gen­uine pos­si­bil­i­ty of war,” Padarath said.

Ad­vo­cat­ing a two-pronged ap­proach, Padarath stressed the need for T&T to of­fer me­di­a­tion ser­vices to con­vene dis­cus­sions be­tween the dis­put­ing par­ties, while con­cur­rent­ly de­vis­ing a com­pre­hen­sive strate­gic plan en­com­pass­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, food se­cu­ri­ty, and bor­der pro­tec­tion.

Ex­press­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with Cari­com’s po­si­tion, Padarath urged T&T to stand in uni­ty with Guyana and ad­vo­cate for peace­ful, diplo­mat­ic ne­go­ti­a­tions with Venezuela.


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