RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne has hit back at the UNC af­ter two of its MPs called on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to act as a me­di­a­tor in the Venezuela/Guyanese bor­der dis­pute.

Re­spond­ing to the UNC's call via X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter), Dr Browne said: "The UNC is dis­con­nect­ed from CARI­COM and in­co­her­ent on re­gion­al mat­ters."

He fur­ther wrote: " The UNC's re­peat­ed call for in­volve­ment of any third state in ne­go­ti­a­tions /di­rect me­di­a­tion be­tween Guyana and Venezuela on the bor­der is­sue is in fla­grant vi­o­la­tion of the na­tion­al pol­i­cy of Guyana."

He al­so ac­cused the UNC of show­ing dis­re­gard to the po­si­tion tak­en by Cari­com.

"The UNC's pub­lic com­ments on the Guyana/Venezuela bor­der is­sue com­plete­ly con­tra­dict the unan­i­mous po­si­tion of CARI­COM," he point­ed out.

Cari­com in a state­ment last Fri­day ex­pressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with the rul­ing of the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice al­so known as the World Court not­ing that the Court's or­der meant that Venezuela has no au­thor­i­ty to an­nex Es­se­qui­bo from Guyana re­gard­less of the out­come of the ref­er­en­dum held in Venezuela on Sun­day, which re­port­ed­ly showed 95 per cent of the Venezue­lan peo­ple want­ed an an­nex­a­tion of Es­sique­bo to Venezuela.

Dr Browne ac­cused the UNC of mak­ing con­tra­dic­to­ry state­ments "whilst in­co­her­ent­ly claim­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with the CARI­COM po­si­tion. They con­sis­tent­ly try to un­der­mine CARI­COM and the for­eign pol­i­cy of T&T," Dr Browne con­tend­ed.

He added: " Just to be di­vi­sive the UNC backed (Juan) Guai­do. Bizarrely they now call for me­di­a­tion and bor­der ne­go­ti­a­tion when the clear CARI­COM/Guyana po­si­tion is to prop­er­ly treat with it via the ICJ."

On Sat­ur­day, Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath called on the T&T gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene as a me­di­a­tor in the on­go­ing bor­der dis­pute and de­vel­op a com­pre­hen­sive na­tion­al strat­e­gy to ad­dress the loom­ing threat of war.

High­light­ing the im­per­a­tive need for T&T to pre­pare in the event of war, Padarath un­der­scored Venezuela's dis­re­gard for the rul­ing of the ICJ which un­equiv­o­cal­ly di­rect­ed Venezuela last Fri­day, to re­frain from any ac­tions chal­leng­ing Guyana’s es­tab­lished con­trol over the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion.

Two weeks ear­li­er, for­mer Am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed Na­tions and Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles raised con­cerns about the po­ten­tial vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of T&T to Venezuela's mil­i­tary in­flu­ence in the fu­ture.

He al­so said T&T could play a piv­otal role in me­di­a­tion be­tween both coun­tries not­ing that a na­tion­al pol­i­cy was need­ed now to treat mi­grants, tight­en and lock down the bor­ders, a es­tab­lish an in­ven­to­ry of mi­grants.

MP Charles em­pha­sized the need for diplo­mat­ic in­ter­ven­tion, propos­ing that T&T, as a close friend to Venezuela and Guyana, use its in­flu­ence to bring the par­ties to the ne­go­ti­at­ing ta­ble for a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion.