RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is call­ing on the new Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment to be­gin di­a­logue aimed at re­mov­ing sanc­tions against Venezuela.

These sanc­tions, Dr Row­ley says, are con­tribut­ing to a wide­spread hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in the Caribbean.

Speak­ing vir­tu­al­ly as chair­man of Cari­com dur­ing a Ques­tion and An­swer seg­ment host­ed by the non-par­ti­san or­gan­i­sa­tion The At­lantic Coun­cil on Thurs­day, Dr Row­ley said the en­tire Caribbean would ben­e­fit from a sig­nif­i­cant thaw­ing of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Cu­ba and the US.

“Cu­ba is the Caribbean. Venezuela is the Caribbean. We know the na­ture of the is­sues and the his­to­ry of the chal­lenges in both ar­eas how­ev­er we were very dis­ap­point­ed when the US re­cent­ly re­versed the very wel­come, halt­ing steps to­wards nor­mal­i­sa­tion of the re­la­tion­ship; and most re­cent­ly the an­nounce­ment of the un­con­vinc­ing des­ig­na­tion of Cu­ba as a ter­ror­ist–spon­sor­ing state,” Dr Row­ley said.

He added, “As for the Venezue­lan re­la­tion­ship we would like to see a dis­pas­sion­ate ear­ly re­view of the US “scorched earth pol­i­cy” here since, as the Unit­ed Na­tions’s as­sess­ment con­firms what we al­ways knew, and that is, that the in­ef­fec­tive harsh poli­cies of uni­lat­er­al sanc­tions are con­tribut­ing im­mense­ly to wide­spread ad­di­tion­al in­dis­crim­i­nate hu­man suf­fer­ing in this Caribbean Na­tion which needs help, a com­pas­sion­ate in­gre­di­ent which is not be­yond US lead­er­ship.”

Say­ing Caribbean gov­ern­ments “anx­ious­ly look for­ward to the Unit­ed States play­ing that lead­er­ship role with CARI­COM and the na­tions of Mex­i­co and Nor­way to as­sist Venezue­lans in solv­ing their seem­ing­ly in­tractable po­lit­i­cal prob­lems,” Dr Row­ley said the way for­ward was through con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion.

He re­vealed that ear­ly in his tenure his gov­ern­ment suc­ceed­ed in con­vinc­ing Venezuela to ex­port its nat­ur­al gas.

How­ev­er, he said, every­thing fell through be­cause of US sanc­tions.

“All we ask of the new ad­min­is­tra­tion is to re­set and give the di­a­logue a chance.

“Nor­way has en­cour­aged that, so did Mex­i­co,” Dr Row­ley said, not­ing that the Unit­ed States could bring all Venezue­lan par­ties to a ta­ble with the sup­port of Cari­com and oth­er na­tions, “read the Ri­ot Act and agree that Venezuela must solve Venezuela’s prob­lems in the in­ter­est of Venezuela and all of us who are co-de­pen­dents.”

He added, “I will ask the ad­min­is­tra­tor to not be over­ly in­flu­enced by the dog­ma of the re­cent past and hawks of the re­cent fly­ings but to look at it with a clean table­top.

“We are con­vinced that it is pos­si­ble and some so­lu­tions can be had so sanc­tions can be re­moved and the sanc­tions that are in­creas­ing the hard­ships and cre­at­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis as iden­ti­fied by the Unit­ed Na­tions in­de­pen­dent as­sess­ment and that the Unit­ed States be in­flu­enced by that.”

He al­so ap­pealed to the bank­ing com­mu­ni­ty to de­sist from black­list­ing and de-risk­ing ac­tiv­i­ties re­sult­ing in the with­draw­al of cor­re­spon­dent bank­ing ser­vices from the CARI­COM Mem­ber States.

“Sev­er­ing of these ser­vices, with­out ac­knowl­edg­ing on­go­ing ac­tions to com­ply with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards, is to cut off our prover­bial oxy­gen sup­ply,” he said.

On be­half of the re­gion, Dr Row­ley al­so called for the re­fi­nanc­ing of COVID-re­lat­ed debt and the post­pone­ment of debt ser­vic­ing pay­ments; com­pre­hen­sive debt re­lief; and ap­pro­pri­ate­ly priced fund­ing to build eco­nom­ic and cli­mate re­silience.

He not­ed that con­ces­sion­al lend­ing will al­so al­low for ex­pen­di­ture on pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture and train­ing to sup­port CARI­COM’s dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion.

This, he said will al­low Caribbean gov­ern­ments to pur­sue in­vest­ments crit­i­cal for nu­tri­tion and food se­cu­ri­ty, and en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty.