DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go, along with oth­er Caribbean na­tions, is be­ing warned of the dan­gers posed fol­low­ing the Unit­ed States’ re­moval of Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro—an op­er­a­tion Wash­ing­ton has framed as the ex­e­cu­tion of an ar­rest war­rant linked to al­leged nar­cotics traf­fick­ing.

The warn­ing fol­lows Maduro’s ar­raign­ment in a New York City court yes­ter­day, where he and his wife, Cil­ia Flo­res, plead­ed not guilty to drug and weapons charges. Their court ap­pear­ance came days af­ter their dra­mat­ic re­moval from Cara­cas on Sat­ur­day, in a Unit­ed States-led op­er­a­tion that has sent shock­waves across the Caribbean and raised ques­tions about the le­gal­i­ty and con­se­quences of such uni­lat­er­al ac­tion.

As re­gion­al gov­ern­ments weigh the im­pli­ca­tions, an­a­lysts are warn­ing the move could desta­bilise the Caribbean and set a trou­bling prece­dent un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law.

José Luis Grana­dos Ce­ja, a jour­nal­ist and po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst, cau­tioned that Caribbean lead­ers must nav­i­gate the fall­out and that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must choose her al­lies care­ful­ly.

“One of the strate­gies of the Unit­ed States has been to di­vide Caribbean states from each oth­er, re­al­ly go­ing af­ter Cari­com. She’s un­for­tu­nate­ly played in­to this game, more re­cent­ly talk­ing about how there are peo­ple in the re­gion with nar­co-traf­fick­ing ties, kind of a not-so-sub­tle com­men­tary on oth­er lead­ers in the re­gion, try­ing to po­si­tion her­self and her gov­ern­ment as be­ing an al­ly of the Unit­ed States.

“But as we just fin­ished say­ing, that is not a safe strat­e­gy. And we’ve al­ready seen the lives of Trinida­di­ans lost in this ex­tra­ju­di­cial ex­e­cu­tion cam­paign that the US car­ried out in the Caribbean.

“And so, I think that the wise de­ci­sion is to pro­ceed very cau­tious­ly. Just be­cause you are on the side of Don­ald Trump to­day does not mean that that will be the case in the fu­ture.”

Grana­dos Ce­ja urged Cari­com to unite against what he de­scribed as the “im­pe­ri­al­ist mon­ster in our hemi­sphere” and to pub­licly reaf­firm its com­mit­ment to in­ter­na­tion­al law and mul­ti­lat­er­al in­sti­tu­tions.

Se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic risks

Lec­tur­er and pro­gramme co­or­di­na­tor in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions and glob­al stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies,, Dr Michał Paw­ińs­ki, said the re­moval of a sit­ting head of state vi­o­lates es­tab­lished glob­al norms and rep­re­sents a dan­ger­ous prece­dent.

He warned that es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions could lead to in­sta­bil­i­ty in­side Venezuela, with knock-on ef­fects across the Caribbean, in­clud­ing T&T.

“It has ram­i­fi­ca­tions, eco­nom­ic ram­i­fi­ca­tions, es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing, in the case of Trinidad, the up­com­ing Car­ni­val sea­son and this type of in­sta­bil­i­ty where the air­space might be closed again for one or an­oth­er rea­son.”

Dr Paw­ińs­ki said it re­mains un­clear whether T&T could face re­tal­i­a­tion, de­spite pre­vi­ous warn­ings by Venezue­lan of­fi­cials that neigh­bour­ing states would be held re­spon­si­ble if the US at­tacked Venezuela.

“No­body is sure ex­act­ly how the new pres­i­dent will be op­er­at­ing with re­spect to the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Trinidad and Venezuela and the Unit­ed States. Def­i­nite­ly en­sur­ing the neu­tral­i­ty of Trinidad will bring more se­cu­ri­ty for the coun­try. This po­ten­tial­ly might mean host­ing or not host­ing mil­i­tary ser­vices, mil­i­tary air­craft or ships in Trinidad.

“Be­cause in case of con­flict, any kind of con­flict, mil­i­tary tar­gets are le­git­i­mate tar­gets un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law. So, it might in­crease the risk pro­file of Trinidad if there are mil­i­tary as­sets of the Unit­ed States in Trinidad.”

He added that Maduro’s ar­rest sig­nals con­se­quences for states per­ceived as act­ing against US pol­i­cy.

“And I think this sit­u­a­tion of Maduro is def­i­nite­ly ex­em­pli­fy­ing what the po­ten­tial con­se­quences are and the ca­pa­bil­i­ties of the Unit­ed States to ex­e­cute those threats or state­ments that they are mak­ing. So def­i­nite­ly it is some­thing to take those state­ments se­ri­ous­ly.”

Mean­while, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions and se­cu­ri­ty stud­ies fel­low Dr Joshua P Wal­cott said T&T’s cau­tious pos­ture re­flects un­cer­tain­ty over how Venezuela’s po­lit­i­cal tran­si­tion will un­fold.

“There’s a large Venezue­lan di­as­po­ra in Trinidad and To­ba­go, as you know, as Trinida­di­an cit­i­zens can see for them­selves. And their re­ac­tion to the events that are un­fold­ing is un­pre­dictable, ul­ti­mate­ly.

“Does the Maduro regime, from the ap­pa­ra­tus it­self, have eyes on our of­fi­cials through the di­as­po­ra? We don’t know. Prob­a­bly, yes. Do we have (Venezue­lan) op­po­si­tion sup­port­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go? Of course we do, right? And we have to be very care­ful about their re­ac­tion to the events that are un­fold­ing. So our Prime Min­is­ter’s ac­tions to take se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures are in­deed ob­vi­ous­ly linked to that sort of cal­cu­lus re­gard­ing.”

Caribbean lead­ers re­act

The un­prece­dent­ed ar­rest of Pres­i­dent Maduro has trig­gered sharp re­gion­al con­cern, with Caribbean lead­ers ques­tion­ing the le­gal­i­ty of the ac­tion and its im­pli­ca­tions for sov­er­eign­ty, sta­bil­i­ty and se­cu­ri­ty.

In Do­mini­ca, Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit called for re­straint, warn­ing that po­lit­i­cal up­heaval in Venezuela car­ries re­al con­se­quences for or­di­nary cit­i­zens and neigh­bour­ing states linked by trade, en­er­gy and mi­gra­tion.

“Do­mini­ca re­it­er­ates its call for the rule of law to be ob­served and for on­go­ing diplo­mat­ic ef­forts to en­sure Venezuela’s sta­bil­i­ty, good gov­er­nance, democ­ra­cy and peace,” he said dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence.

In St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Ralph Gon­salves crit­i­cised Cari­com’s mut­ed re­sponse fol­low­ing the US ac­tion, ar­gu­ing the re­gion­al bloc failed to con­front what he de­scribed as a clear breach of in­ter­na­tion­al law by the Unit­ed States.

He said Cari­com’s state­ment al­so fell short of warn­ing Caribbean cit­i­zens about the po­ten­tial con­se­quences of a desta­bilised Venezuela, par­tic­u­lar­ly if US forces were de­ployed on the ground.

“It’s one thing to re­move the Pres­i­dent; it’s an­oth­er thing to in­stall an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ment and that is when you’re go­ing to have may­hem in this Caribbean. A lot of peo­ple are go­ing to get killed, a lot of peo­ple are go­ing to run out of Venezuela, good and bad peo­ple ... And it’s just a short step from Venezuela to Trinidad, to Grena­da, to St Vin­cent—ei­ther peo­ple tran­sit­ing or com­ing di­rect­ly. And you on­ly need a hand­ful of bad men and bad women to come to any of these is­lands to cre­ate may­hem slow­ly at first and then with greater ra­pid­i­ty and de­scent in­to chaos.”

On Sat­ur­day, Cari­com is­sued a state­ment reaf­firm­ing its com­mit­ment to the prin­ci­ples of in­ter­na­tion­al law and mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism, while call­ing for peace­ful di­a­logue through diplo­mat­ic chan­nels to en­sure Venezuela’s sta­bil­i­ty.