Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Trinidad and To­ba­go stands stead­fast with the US amid dif­fer­ing Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil views on the re­cent US mil­i­tary ac­tion con­cern­ing Venezuela and its de­posed leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

T&T’s Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Na­tions, Dr Neal Parsan, told at­ten­dees at the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (UN­SC) yes­ter­day that the coun­try re­mains stead­fast in its sup­port for, and com­mit­ment to, US-led co­op­er­a­tive ef­forts to dis­man­tle crim­i­nal net­works across the Amer­i­c­as.

Parsan did so when he spoke at yes­ter­day’s emer­gency UN­SC meet­ing. This was con­vened re­gard­ing the US’s mil­i­tary ac­tion last Sat­ur­day, cap­tur­ing Maduro and his wife, Cil­ia Flo­res.

The meet­ing, un­der the coun­cil’s agen­da item, “Threats to In­ter­na­tion­al Peace and Se­cu­ri­ty,” was re­quest­ed by Colom­bia, sup­port­ed by Chi­na and Rus­sia. It was chaired by coun­cil chair­man, So­ma­lia’s Pres­i­dent Has­san Sheikh Mo­hamud.

It took place at the UN’s New York head­quar­ters while the Maduros were ap­pear­ing at a Man­hat­tan court.

Pres­i­dent Mo­hamud list­ed coun­tries which had been in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate un­der the coun­cil’s rules on pro­ce­dures: Ar­genti­na, Brazil, Chile, Cu­ba, Er­itrea, Iran, Mex­i­co, Nicaragua, Paraguay, South Africa, Spain, T&T, Ugan­da and Venezuela. T&T was the on­ly Caribbean state in­volved.

Among the 27 coun­tries rep­re­sent­ed, there was vo­cif­er­ous con­dem­na­tion of the US ac­tions, in­clud­ing from Colom­bia, Rus­sia, Chi­na, Cu­ba, Brazil, South Africa, Venezuela, Mex­i­co, Pak­istan, Iran, Er­itrea (121 Non-Aligned States), Ugan­da, Liberia, Nicaragua, and South Africa.

There were calls for the re­lease of Maduro and Flo­res, for de-es­ca­la­tion of force, and for di­a­logue and diplo­ma­cy to be used. Some stressed that Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean is a zone of peace and that this was threat­ened. Cu­ba not­ed 32 Cubans killed in the US at­tack.

The UK, Latvia, France, Paraguay, Chile, and Spain–which didn’t recog­nise Maduro’s lead­er­ship–called for peace­ful de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­lu­tions for Venezue­lans and said that counter-nar­cotics ef­forts and ac­count­abil­i­ty must be pur­sued through law­ful, mul­ti­lat­er­al means. Ar­genti­na and Pana­ma called for the re­lease of their cit­i­zens held in Venezuela.

US and Venezuela spar

US Am­bas­sador to the UN Mike Waltz de­fined Amer­i­ca’s op­er­a­tion as a sur­gi­cal law-en­force­ment op­er­a­tion fa­cil­i­tat­ed by its mil­i­tary against “two in­dict­ed fugi­tives ... nar­co ter­ror­ists.” He said it wasn’t an act of war and the US wasn’t oc­cu­py­ing a coun­try. He said “over­whelm­ing ev­i­dence” of crimes will be pre­sent­ed in court. He said US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump had giv­en Maduro mul­ti­ple of­fers and tried to de-es­ca­late, but Maduro re­fused.

Waltz ques­tioned what kind of or­gan­i­sa­tion the UN is if it con­ferred le­git­i­ma­cy on a “nar­co-traf­fick­er.” Waltz said the US wouldn’t al­low the West­ern Hemi­sphere to be used as a base for “our ad­ver­saries, com­peti­tors and ri­vals.”

Venezuela’s UN Am­bas­sador Samuel Mon­ca­da strong­ly slam­ming the US’s ac­tion, said the “kid­nap­ping” of the Maduros breached the im­mu­ni­ties of heads of state, and the sit­u­a­tion set a prece­dent for all states in the UN. He said the cred­i­bil­i­ty of in­ter­na­tion­al law and the UN’s au­thor­i­ty is at stake.

He re­quest­ed the re­lease and safe re­turn to Venezuela of the Maduros and for the US use of force to be con­demned. Mon­ca­da said Venezue­lan in­sti­tu­tions are func­tion­ing nor­mal­ly, con­sti­tu­tion­al or­der has been pre­served and the state has con­trol over its ter­ri­to­ry. He said Ex­ec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez, now the Act­ing Pres­i­dent, would guar­an­tee con­ti­nu­ity, sta­bil­i­sa­tion and in­ter­nal peace.

T&T stead­fast in sup­port of US

T&T’s Parsan stat­ed, “My del­e­ga­tion ad­dress­es this coun­cil as a Caribbean na­tion, a neigh­bour of Venezuela and a long-stand­ing ad­vo­cate for peace, for co-ex­is­tence and the rule of law.”

He said, “The Gov­ern­ment of T&T has tak­en note of the mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions un­der­tak­en by the Unit­ed States in Venezuela. We re­main com­mit­ted to co-op­er­a­tive ef­forts led by the Unit­ed States to dis­rupt and dis­man­tle net­works that en­able transna­tion­al crime across the Amer­i­c­as whose ac­tiv­i­ties have had de­bil­i­tat­ing ef­fects on the se­cu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty of the re­gion.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains stead­fast in its sup­port of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca’s ini­tia­tives that strength­en re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty, re­in­force the rule of law and safe­guard the well-be­ing of our so­ci­eties–the Amer­i­c­as.

“The Gov­ern­ment of T&T, while valu­ing its long-stand­ing and ro­bust part­ner­ship with the Unit­ed States, re­mains equal­ly com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing a con­struc­tive and re­spect­ful re­la­tion­ship with the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela and con­tin­ues to up­hold peace­ful re­la­tions with the peo­ple of Venezuela.”

UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al: In­ter­na­tion­al law wasn’t re­spect­ed

Unit­ed Na­tions Un­der Sec­re­tary Rose­mary Di­Car­lo read an ad­dress by UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res, who was un­able to at­tend the meet­ing.

Guter­res said, “I re­main deeply con­cerned that rules of in­ter­na­tion­al law have not been re­spect­ed with re­gard to the 3 Jan­u­ary mil­i­tary ac­tion. The UN Char­ter en­shrines the pro­hi­bi­tion of the threat or use of force against the ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty or po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence of any state.

“The main­te­nance of in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty de­pends on the con­tin­ued com­mit­ment of all mem­ber states to ad­here to all the pro­vi­sions of the Char­ter. Venezuela has ex­pe­ri­enced decades of in­ter­nal in­sta­bil­i­ty and so­cial and eco­nom­ic tur­moil. Democ­ra­cy has been un­der­mined. Mil­lions of its peo­ple have fled the coun­try. The sit­u­a­tion is crit­i­cal, but it is still pos­si­ble to pre­vent a wider and more de­struc­tive con­fla­gra­tion.”

Cit­ing Venezuela’s im­me­di­ate fu­ture, Guter­res said he was deeply con­cerned about the pos­si­ble in­ten­si­fi­ca­tion of in­sta­bil­i­ty in the coun­try, the po­ten­tial im­pact on the re­gion, and the prece­dent it may set for how re­la­tions be­tween and among states are con­duct­ed.

Guter­res called on all Venezue­lan ac­tors to en­gage in in­clu­sive, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic di­a­logue in which all sec­tors can de­ter­mine their fu­ture.

“I al­so urge Venezuela’s neigh­bours and the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty more broad­ly to act in a spir­it of sol­i­dar­i­ty and in ad­her­ence to the prin­ci­ples, laws and rules erect­ed to pro­mote peace­ful co­ex­is­tence.”

Guter­res wel­comed all ef­forts aimed at as­sist­ing Venezue­lans in find­ing a peace­ful way for­ward.

Spe­cial en­voy to re­port in 2 weeks

Di­rec­tor of the UN Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment So­lu­tions Net­work Jef­frey Sachs said the is­sue be­fore the coun­cil wasn’t the char­ac­ter of the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment or to judge Maduro.

He said it was about whether any mem­ber state–by force, co­er­cion or eco­nom­ic stran­gu­la­tion–has the right to de­ter­mine Venezuela’s po­lit­i­cal fu­ture or to ex­er­cise con­trol over its af­fairs, and coun­cil mem­bers had to de­fend in­ter­na­tion­al law, specif­i­cal­ly the UN char­ter. Sachs not­ed US ac­tions on var­i­ous coun­tries.

Sachs said the UN­SC should im­me­di­ate­ly af­firm that the US im­me­di­ate­ly cease and de­sist from all ex­plic­it/im­plic­it threats or use of force against Venezuela and ter­mi­nate its naval quar­an­tine around Venezuela and all re­lat­ed co­er­cive mil­i­tary mea­sures. The US should al­so im­me­di­ate­ly with­draw mil­i­tary forces from with­in/along Venezuela’s perime­ter, in­clud­ing in­tel­li­gence, naval, air and oth­ers.

Sachs rec­om­mend­ed the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al im­me­di­ate­ly ap­point a spe­cial en­voy to en­gage the rel­e­vant Venezue­lan and in­ter­na­tion­al stake­hold­ers and re­port to the USC with­in 14 days with rec­om­men­da­tions con­sis­tent with the Char­ter, and the UN­SC should re­main ur­gent­ly in­formed of the mat­ter.