Trinidad and To­ba­go is stand­ing firm­ly for the re­gion to re­main a zone of peace, in­clud­ing re­spect­ing in­ter­na­tion­al law and the sov­er­eign bor­ders of all na­tions—in­clud­ing sis­ter Cari­com mem­ber Guyana.

This was made clear yes­ter­day by For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne and T&T’s High Com­mis­sion­er to Guyana Con­rad Enill, in the wake of the Venezue­lan ref­er­en­dum out­come on Guyana’s Es­se­qui­bo dis­trict on Sun­day.

An­oth­er state­ment is ex­pect­ed to be is­sued by Cari­com on the is­sue short­ly, Browne added.

Venezue­lans ap­proved moves to claim sov­er­eign­ty of the oil-rich area in the vote on Sun­day.

Last Fri­day, the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ) ruled that Venezuela re­frain from tak­ing any ac­tion which would mod­i­fy the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion where Guyana ex­er­cis­es con­trol over the re­gion.

Venezuela, how­ev­er, re­ject­ed the ICJ rul­ing, sub­se­quent­ly slammed Cari­com’s state­ment up­hold­ing this and called out Cari­com part­ner states to re­turn to ob­jec­tiv­i­ty and “dis­tance them­selves from the pre-con­ceived judg­ments of Exxon­Mo­bil and the US South­ern Com­mand” in or­der to con­tin­ue guar­an­tee­ing a his­to­ry of co-op­er­a­tion, in­te­gra­tion and peace in the re­gion.

Speak­ing af­ter yes­ter­day’s launch of the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my Fo­cal Point At­tach­ment pro­gramme, Browne told re­porters the Guyana-Venezuela is­sue was on the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty’s minds and Cari­com con­tin­ues speak­ing with one unit­ed voice on this and will con­tin­ue do­ing so.

He said T&T’s po­si­tion was iden­ti­cal to Cari­com’s.

“We can an­tic­i­pate an­oth­er state­ment which is in draft cur­rent­ly and which will be shared with the re­gion­al com­mu­ni­ty in the rea­son­able fu­ture. We’re stronger to­geth­er, we con­tin­ue speak­ing with one voice on this mat­ter,” he said.

“We con­tin­ue call­ing for the main­te­nance of peace and re­spect for in­ter­na­tion­al law and the in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised sov­er­eign bor­der of all na­tions, in­clud­ing our fel­low Cari­com mem­ber state Guyana. The po­si­tion of Guyana and all of Cari­com is that the bor­der mat­ter is prop­er­ly be­fore the ICJ at this time ... we con­tin­ue to call on all par­ties — re­spect the Caribbean Sea as a zone of peace and for all to con­duct them­selves with a peace­ful com­mon fea­ture.”

Amid the sit­u­a­tion, High Com­mis­sion­er Enill said Guyana re­mains on high alert. He said he and the oth­er six High Com­mis­sion mem­bers in George­town were safe.

Re­it­er­at­ing Cari­com’s po­si­tion that the re­gion re­main a zone of peace, a po­si­tion to which T&T sub­scribes, Enill added, “It is im­por­tant for re­gion­al eco­nom­ic and so­cial de­vel­op­ment that this re­main in place.”

Enill not­ed that post-ref­er­en­dum, there had been mes­sages on Sun­day from Guyana’s lead­er­ship, in­clud­ing Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali, who had as­sured Guyanese that there is noth­ing to fear over the next days or months ahead.

Ali, he said, al­so as­sured that Guyana’s course of vig­i­lance will be en­hanced and it is work­ing around the clock to en­sure that or­der re­mains in­tact and that the peo­ple and coun­try re­main safe.

“That, there­fore, sets the tone for what­ev­er is tak­ing place in Guyana and that our ex­pec­ta­tion is that Venezuela and Guyana will ob­serve the ICJ’s rul­ing,” Enill added.

“Clear­ly, there are con­cerns that peo­ple share gen­er­al­ly about main­tain­ing this re­gion as a zone of peace be­cause any ac­tiv­i­ty or change to the sta­tus quo will im­pact in­vestor con­fi­dence in the re­gion. At this time, with all the eco­nom­ic chal­lenges the re­gion faces as a re­sult of the war on Ukraine and the Is­raeli con­flict, we’re very mind­ful of neg­a­tive im­pacts if the cur­rent con­di­tions change.”

Enill con­tin­ued, “So we’re in a wait and see sit­u­a­tion, ob­serv­ing how the event un­folds and mind­ful of the risks as­so­ci­at­ed with any neg­a­tive changes to our sit­u­a­tion. We re­al­ly hope noth­ing hap­pens to in­ter­fere with the con­di­tions that are re­quired to deal with the big­ger is­sues we have to face—cli­mate change, food se­cu­ri­ty, en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty—which are still very much in play.

“The ques­tion of en­sur­ing cit­i­zens get the op­por­tu­ni­ty and have a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life through im­prove­ment in in­fra­struc­ture, ed­u­ca­tion and oth­er ar­eas—all of this can be af­fect­ed if things change. There­fore, a lot is rid­ing on the re­gion re­main­ing a zone of peace—to which we all sub­scribe—so coun­tries can con­tin­ue their de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes. My sense is that the prin­ci­ples of the ICJ’s rul­ing present the best op­por­tu­ni­ty for that to be main­tained.”

Browne: UNC’s call ill-found­ed

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne al­so said he was very dis­turbed by Op­po­si­tion voic­es on the dis­pute which were once again try­ing to make them­selves an out­lier and get in­to for­eign pol­i­cy mat­ters in which they had lit­tle ex­per­tise—but with a pen­chant for di­vi­sion and neg­a­tive views.

He re­butted UNC claims on the Venezuela-Guyana is­sue, say­ing the Op­po­si­tion had al­ways sought to un­der­mine Cari­com’s po­si­tion and T&T’s for­eign pol­i­cy.

Browne said, “Bizarrely, they now call for me­di­a­tion and bor­der ne­go­ti­a­tion when the clear Cari­com/Guyana po­si­tion is to prop­er­ly treat with it via the ICJ. The UNC’s dis­con­nect­ed from Cari­com and in­co­her­ent on re­gion­al mat­ters. Their re­peat­ed call for in­volve­ment of any third par­ty in ne­go­ti­a­tions/di­rect me­di­a­tion be­tween Venezuela and Guyana is in fla­grant vi­o­la­tion of Guyana’s na­tion­al pol­i­cy.

“Their com­ments on the bor­der is­sue com­plete­ly con­tra­dicts Cari­com’s unan­i­mous po­si­tion, yet they make these state­ments claim­ing ‘sol­i­dar­i­ty’ with Cari­com’s po­si­tion.”