Maduro open to mediation "in TT or wherever"

Nicolas Maduro has said he is open to talks with his opponents in “Trinidad and Tobago or wherever.” In a speech to members of the Venezuelan diplomatic corps at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, on Monday, Maduro said his administration was “establishing contact with governments who offered to mediate.

"As I said to the Caribbean Prime Ministers today. They were in New York. They met with the UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres. I spoke with all of them at length during the afternoon. I spoke with Evo Morales (President of Bolivia). We are also establishing contact with governments who offered to mediate dialogue and I told them I am ready once again in Venezuela or in Trinidad and Tobago or wherever to begin a round of conversations, dialogue, negotiations, with all of the Venezuelan opposition when and where they want them."

On Monday, a Caricom delegation led by current chairman St Kitts and Nevis PM Dr Timothy Harris, and including Barbados PM Mia Mottley and TT PM Dr Keith Rowley, met with Guterres at the UN in New York. Dr Rowley in a release said he was “satisfied” that the UN would help Caricom maintain peace and security in the region and Venezuela.

A release from Caricom said the delegation “expressed its grave concern over the untenable situation in Venezuela and strongly urged that further deterioration would seriously aggravate the plight of Venezuelans.” Caricom was also insistent that the region must remain a “Zone of Peace.”

Guterres, the release added, said that circumstances permitting, the UN would facilitate dialogue and negotiation between the parties. Caricom said it was willing to “work assiduously to bring the parties to the negotiating table.”

Neither release, from Rowley nor Caricom, mentioned speaking with Maduro.

Political instability in Venezuela had been simmering for over two years as the country reeled from an economic and humanitarian crisis spurred by plummeting commodity prices and bad economic policies that lead to massive hyperinflation, hunger, unemployment and the biggest refugee crisis in the Western Hemisphere. Last Wednesday, those tensions exploded when National Assembly president, Juan Guaido, in front of thousands of anti-government protesters declared himself interim president of the country, according to the Constitution, until free and fair elections could take place. The last general election was last May, when Maduro won in a contest widely condemned to be fraudulent, corrupt and illegitimate.