SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

For­mer di­rec­tor of UWI In­si­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions Prof Andy Knight has ad­mit­ted that T&T has found it­self in a "se­ri­ous and dan­ger­ous po­si­tion" by pledg­ing its sup­port for Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro.

Knight made the com­ment on CNC3 on Thurs­day dur­ing a pan­el dis­cus­sion with For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Den­nis Moses, for­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan and Venezue­lan ac­tivist Sofia Figueroa-Leon as thou­sands of Venezue­lans have re­volt­ed against Maduro, while Juan Guai­do de­clared him­self as pres­i­dent.

Knight, com­ment­ing on T&T's stance on Maduro as Pres­i­dent, said, "I think Trinidad's po­si­tion looks a lit­tle weak to the rest of the world. But then again, they are put in a very se­ri­ous and a very dan­ger­ous po­si­tion be­ing so close to Venezuela...hav­ing a lot of sup­port from Maduro's ad­min­is­tra­tion in the past. It's very dif­fi­cult for the Trinida­di­an Gov­ern­ment to now say that they do not sup­port Maduro. This is a bad sit­u­a­tion for the T&T Gov­ern­ment."

Knight said there was a need for Maduro and Guai­do to de-es­ca­late the prob­lem and come to some kind of me­di­a­tion.

"The po­si­tions are so hard­er now that it is al­most im­pos­si­ble to see that hap­pen­ing," Knight said.

Moses agreed there was a need to de-es­ca­late Venezuela's cri­sis, stat­ing that "we were at the brink of an abyss as it were" and we should be unit­ed as a com­mon front.

He said the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of the Amer­i­can States (OAS) as a par­tial ar­biter "had its po­si­tion con­fis­cat­ed by the ac­tions of the cur­rent head of the sec­re­tary gen­er­al (Luis) Al­ma­gro be­cause of his tem­per­ate stance and in­sult­ing and deroga­to­ry state­ments di­rect­ed at sit­ting con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly elect­ed Heads of States".

Ram­bachan ques­tioned what ac­tions T&T took to al­le­vi­ate the hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in Venezuela.

"The last thing you want to see is Maduro backed by the army against the peo­ple."

Ram­bachan said in­stead of T&T tak­ing a lead­er­ship po­si­tion on Cari­com, the PNM Gov­ern­ment sat by and al­lowed things to de­te­ri­o­rate, re­sult­ing in cit­i­zens flee­ing their coun­try due to hard­ships.

Figueroa asked Moses if there was a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in Venezuela, to which he said it was not a "dom­i­nant is­sue". He said what was dom­i­nant was a res­o­lu­tion go­ing for­ward.

Asked if he was wor­ried that T&T's im­age may come across in a neg­a­tive light, Moses said the Gov­ern­ment was privy to facts.

"It is not a ques­tion of T&T be­ing put in a neg­a­tive light. We sole­ly be­lieve in the rule of law in the need to have good neigh­bourly re­la­tions with coun­tries in our area and be­yond... non-in­ter­fer­ence non-in­ter­ven­tion. It must be based on de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples."

Moses was asked if he had reached out to Maduro or Gui­do, he said they have been in con­tact with Gov­ern­ments of many coun­tries "in­clu­sive of Venezuela."

He said his Gov­ern­ment ful­ly sup­ports Maduro and its cit­i­zens.

"In no un­cer­tain terms. We have said it over and over and over again. I think we recog­nise the pres­i­den­cy of Pres­i­dent Maduro. We have not come to any oth­er po­si­tion," Moses in­sist­ed.