T&T Must Have A Consistent Stand on International Affairs

Over 48 hours (10-11 January), Trinidad and Tobago has acted in a manner that sends mixed signals in its relations with Venezuela and its elected Government.
On Thursday, a resolution which denied and denounced the legitimacy of the elected President and Government of Venezuela was passed at a Special Meeting of the Organisation of American States (OAS) Permanent Council. It called on member-states to take ‘diplomatic, political, economic and financial measures ….to contribute to the prompt restoration of the democratic order of Venezuela’.
The resolution was passed by a vote of 19 for – 6 against and 8 abstentions. The abstaining countries included T&T.
Having neither supported nor opposed the resolution, T&T attended the inauguration of President Maduro for his second term of office and was represented by Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, Dennis Moses.
CARICOM DIVIDED
Once again CARICOM presented a disunited face as Jamaica, St Lucia, Haiti, Bahamas, and Guyana voted in favour, Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname voted against while Trinidad and Tobago, St Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, and Belize abstained.
This resolution follows another passed in June 2018 which was widely viewed as an attempt to pave the way for intervention (possibly military) with the objective of imposing ‘regime change’ in Venezuela.
The resolution passed on Thursday is a continuation of this interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela.
Except for Guyana which has had a long-standing dispute with Venezuela over territorial border matters, the rest of the Caribbean countries have had good neighbourly relations with it based on rmutual benefit and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. This is how the relations among sovereign states should be conducted and maintained.
It is disappointing that CARICOM countries have allowed themselves to become divided in the OAS and its hostile stand against the elected Venezuelan leader and Government championed by the US.
The position stated by St Vincent and the Grenadines must be congratulated. Their representative said: “The OAS has to be careful because it may be viewed as an entity which any opposition party can manipulate as a tool in its campaign to enter office, whether by the ballot box and other means which appear to be questionable.”.
This is consistent with that country’s opposition to the June 2018 resolution of the OAS.
 T&T Must Be Consistent
T&T appears position, however, appears to be inconsistent.
How can a state abstain from voting on such a resolution one day and then, the next day send a senior Cabinet member as its representative to the inauguration which the resolution opposed?
The Communications Minister told the world that TT was attending the Venezuelan President’s inauguration because we are very close neighbours and we do not meddle in the internal affairs of that country.
That is a laudable statement. Opposition of the meddling OAS resolution would have been consistent with such a position. But instead T&T abstained.
Countries, like individuals, must act in a manner which demonstrate that their word and deed are one. And T&T must be like that.
In the case of Grenada in the 1980’s and the brutal US intervention to impose regime change there, this country was consistent in its word and deed and refused to participate in that military adventure of a big power.
The world has long recognised that the relations among states, big or small, must be based on mutual respect for the sovereignty of each country; respect for the right of the people of all states to determine their own political systems; adherence to non-interference in each other’s internal affairs and working together for the resolution of problems affecting mankind, for peace, mutually beneficial trade and solving problems of environmental degradation and climate change.
This country had established a record of acting on this principled basis.
We must continue to do so.
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for the
Nation-building Project in T&T
 
12 January 2019