'Caricomess' in treating with Guyana-Venezuela dispute

THE EDITOR: In his post Caricom-Saudi Arabia summit news conference on Monday, Prime Minister Rowley seems to be woefully out of touch with recent regional developments.

In fact, he unwittingly made a veiled criticism of Guyana's principled position that it will not enter bilateral negotiations and dialogue with Venezuela while the matter of the validity of the 1899 treaty and boundary is before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

One can glean this faux pas when he said: dialogue, dialogue dialogue.

Both the government, the National Assembly in its bipartisan resolution of November 6 and the Guyanese delegation to the ICJ as a matter of principle abandoned holding any bilateral dialogue after 40 years of failures since the matter was now squarely under the adjudicatory process of the ICJ in the Hague, having been referred there by then UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon in 2018.

Rowley ought to have known that policy and not advocate resumption of any more dialogue that conflicts with Guyana’s stand.

He should be calling on Venezuela to participate in the ICJ process and relinquish its proposed use of force – invasion of the Essequibo region of Guyana.

Rowley ought to have known that extrajudicial dialogue will undermine and compromise the current ICJ proceedings.

Rowley speaks of Caricom cohesiveness as being at its best level even when Barbados Prime Mia Mottley and now St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonzales have broken ranks and have failed to condemn the threat that Venezuela is mounting against Guyana for oil and gas.

In fact petro-politics is being skilfully used by Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro to weaken the Caricom front on the much touted invasion of Guyana, with Caricom chairman Dr Roosevelt Skerrit also joining the pilgrimage to pay homage to Caracas.

I am reminded of the 1975 statement made by the late Williams that Venezuela under president Carlos Andres Peres was a threat to the Caribbean Community by using the remote uninhabited Aves island to deprive Eastern Caribbean countries to their appurtenant EEZs (exclusive economic zones) on the West and claim one-fifth of the Caribbean Sea.

This illegal expansionist southern demarche into the Essequibo must be viewed as a fulfilment of Williams's foresight and vision, but Rowley has little testicular fortitude to resist Maduro as Williams resisted Peres.

Venezuela in its expansionist drive has captured the North Caribbean, the south-eastern Atlantic via the 1990 TT/Venezuela Maritime Treaty and now it wants the Essequibo in the South to deprive Guyana of two-thirds of its land territory and its large expanses of its EEZ and continental shelf.

Rowley joins Mottley in lumping Guyana with Venezuela, both threaten the zone of peace concept that appears to be the top priority, without identifying Venezuela's referendum as the main architect to any violation of the zone of peace concept.

It is Venezuela that is sabre-rattling but the collective three PMs cannot call a spade a spade because they are victims of Venezuela's petro-politics.

Rowley is gas hungry and Maduro will extract every ounce of leverage from TT by dangling the Dragon that cannot dance nor yield gaseous liquids without the permission of the US, which can reimpose sanctions once Venezuela embarks upon its pre-emptive invasion and annexation agenda.

Rowley, Mottley and Gonzales all failed to condemn Venezuela's attempt to legitimise its invasion plans buttressed by domestic laws that are in complete violation of the tenets of the UN Charter, international law and jurisprudence of the ICJ.

They are all hiding behind the skirt of the non-compulsory and non-binding concept of the zone of peace and refusing to appeal to the Venezuelans to abort its referendum as the Caricom statement called for, and to pour oil on Caribbean troubled waters without pro-Venezuelan loyalty and conditionalities.

STEPHEN KANGAL

Caroni