Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The longer the on­go­ing mil­i­tary ten­sion be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela con­tin­ues, the greater the po­ten­tial for T&T to be di­rect­ly af­fect­ed.

This was the view sug­gest­ed by econ­o­mist and for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Mar­i­ano Browne and Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) leader David Ab­du­lah as they both ex­pressed po­ten­tial con­cerns over the po­ten­tial neg­a­tive ef­fect of the still-brew­ing geopo­lit­i­cal im­passe be­tween the two coun­tries.

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Browne ex­plained that fish­er­men and op­er­a­tors of plea­sure craft were al­ready be­ing af­fect­ed by the pres­ence of US naval ves­sels in the re­gion and a se­ries of co­or­di­nat­ed mis­sile at­tacks by the US on ves­sels sus­pect­ed to be en­gaged in drug traf­fick­ing, in­clud­ing one which is sus­pect­ed to have claimed the lives of two T&T na­tion­als.

“This ten­sion would af­fect your fish­ing and plea­sure craft, how far they go, and what it is they do. If it af­fects fish­ing, it would af­fect the price of fish,” Browne said.

Not­ing that the op­er­a­tions of the Port-of-Spain Port would be af­fect­ed this week due to the ex­pect­ed ar­rival of the USS Grave­ly, a guid­ed mis­sile de­stroy­er, Browne sug­gest­ed that this may re­sult in sup­ply chain is­sues.

“The longer this lasts,the greater po­ten­tial for mishap. The greater po­ten­tial for in­vestors to be pissed off,” Browne said.

“You don’t want to have this con­tin­ue in the long run. There is un­cer­tain­ty in the world econ­o­my in gen­er­al, and there is un­cer­tain­ty specif­i­cal­ly in the T&T mar­itime cor­ri­dors,” he added.

Browne sug­gest­ed that this coun­try could on­ly con­tin­ue to ob­serve the sit­u­a­tion as it plays out cur­rent­ly in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters and work on con­tin­gency plans in case the sit­u­a­tion in­ten­si­fies.

He al­so sug­gest­ed that there may be an in­crease in the al­ready sig­nif­i­cant for­eign ex­change de­mand by cit­i­zens, as some may seek to bol­ster their re­serves as part of their per­son­al con­tin­gency plans.

“It may ratch­et up the de­mand for for­eign ex­change. We don’t know,” he said.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, Ab­du­lah sug­gest­ed that sus­pect­ed mil­i­tary ac­tion against Venezuela could lead to an in­flux of refugees.

“We must re­main a Zone of Peace. War cre­ates in­sta­bil­i­ty with­in a coun­try, eco­nom­ic in­sta­bil­i­ty, po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty, and so­cial in­sta­bil­i­ty, and it would spill over in­to our coun­try,” Ab­du­lah said.

He al­so re­ject­ed claims by US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump that the US mil­i­tary build-up in the re­gion is to com­bat peo­ple and en­ti­ties des­ig­nat­ed by the US as nar­co-traf­fick­ers and nar­co-ter­ror­ists, in­clud­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro.

“The US is clear­ly about regime change. It is very, very sim­ple. The is­sue of nar­co traf­fick­ing is a fig leaf,” Ab­du­lah said.

“This is about the US prepar­ing to at­tack Venezuela to ef­fect regime change. It is about war,” he added, as he not­ed that he par­tic­i­pat­ed in a peace­ful demon­stra­tion out­side the US Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain over the is­sue this week.

Ab­du­lah al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment for fa­cil­i­tat­ing a vis­it by the USS Grave­ly, a US guid­ed mis­sile de­stroy­er, which is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in Trinidad to­day for joint ex­er­cis­es with the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF).

De­scrib­ing the vis­it as an “abom­i­na­tion”, Ab­du­lah said, “The T&T gov­ern­ment should nev­er have giv­en per­mis­sion for this ac­tiv­i­ty, these joint train­ing ex­er­cis­es with the De­fence Force, at this time. What mes­sage does that send?”

Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the US and the Organisation of American States Sir Ronald Sanders

www.sirronaldsanders.com

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da’s Am­bas­sador calls for re­gion­al uni­ty

In a state­ment on Fri­day, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da’s Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary to the US and the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) Sir Ronald Sanders sought to weigh in on the stance tak­en by this coun­try’s Gov­ern­ment led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in sup­port­ing the US mil­i­tary ac­tion in the re­gion.

He not­ed that it was in stark con­trast to a joint state­ment is­sued by the heads of oth­er Cari­com mem­ber states, who sought to reaf­firm the Caribbean as a “Zone of Peace”.

He sug­gest­ed that the sit­u­a­tion demon­strat­ed the bal­ance mem­ber states must strike when weigh­ing re­gion­al uni­ty and the in­di­vid­ual sit­u­a­tions af­fect­ing them.

Sanders said di­vi­sion with­in Cari­com would weak­en its po­ten­tial ef­fec­tive­ness.

“If the Caribbean’s re­sponse to mi­gra­tion, crime, and se­cu­ri­ty be­comes a cho­rus of in­di­vid­ual voic­es-each pitched by its own do­mes­tic con­cerns- then the col­lec­tive shield that should de­fine Cari­com will splin­ter. Dis­uni­ty weak­ens the strength of the re­gion­al col­lec­tive,” he said.

Al­though he said that part­ner­ships with larg­er democ­ra­cies such as the US are vi­tal, he sug­gest­ed that such part­ner­ships should not be at the ex­pense of the re­gion.

“When co­op­er­a­tion with larg­er part­ners be­gins to place their pri­or­i­ties over the re­gion’s, part­ner­ship turns in­to proxy, and sov­er­eign­ty erodes,” he said.

He al­so sug­gest­ed that any co­op­er­a­tion be­tween mem­ber states and third-par­ty states must be with­in the con­fines of re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al law.

“They must co­op­er­ate with oth­ers in the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty-but with­in the frame­work first of the Cari­com Treaty and the UN Char­ter, and there­after in the con­text of the mul­ti­lat­er­al agree­ments to which they are sig­na­to­ries, in­clud­ing the Law of the Sea Con­ven­tion,” Sanders said.