Two South Caribbean nations bordering Venezuela have thrown their support behind plans by the Trump administration to move against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his regime, with one even offering the U.S. access to its territory as a military launching pad if Venezuela engages in any irresponsible action.
The governments of Guyana and Trinidad appeared to time their support for Washington just as the flotilla of U.S. warships and other military equipment was arriving near the South American nation, which the U.S. and other countries have dubbed as a rogue nation because of its history of rigged elections and other political and constitutional infractions.
On Friday, Guyana’s government issued a mild statement supporting international moves to rid the region of organized gangs and criminal networks like the Cartel de los Soles of Venezuela, while Trinidadian Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar came out blazing with a late-Saturday statement unequivocally supporting the U.S. against Venezuela. Her announcement appears to have left the federation with Tobago in a state of political shock, especially because Foreign Minister Sean Sobers had just hours earlier vowed that the twin island republic was planning to stay out of the conflict.
Local pundits and opposition parties have complained that the move has left the nation open to reprisals from Venezuela in the future and should not have been made. The two countries are separated by only seven miles of water, while Guyana shares small bordering rivers with Venezuela.
“Guyana reaffirms its support for a collaborative and integrated approach to tackle transnational organized crime,” authorities said in a cleverly disguised statement. “We are committed to working with our bilateral partners to find meaningful solutions and will support regional and global initiatives aimed at dismantling criminal networks to safeguard our shared security.”
Persad Bissessar, however, was far more forthright. “The U.S. government’s deployment of American military assets into the Caribbean region to destroy the terrorist drug cartels has the full support of the government of TT,” she said in a statement. “The only persons who should be worried about the activity of the U.S. military are those engaged in or enabling criminal activity. Law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear.”
She made it clear that no contact was made with the umbrella 15-member Caribbean Community about this development, noting that “each member state can speak for themselves on this issue. Most Caribbean countries, and in particular TT, have been dealing with out-of-control crime for the last 20 years. Small island states like ours simply do not have the financial and military resources to take on the drug cartels,” she said in her unequivocal support from any anticipated American action.
Speaking directly about allowing the federation to be used as an American military launching base, Persad Bissessar pointed to perennial threats from Venezuela about invading Guyana to enforce a decades-old claim for Guyana’s western Essequibo region. Any moves by Caracas would result in immediate assistance to U.S. forces.
“I want to make it very clear that if the Maduro regime launches any attack against the Guyanese people or invades Guyanese territory and a request is made by the American government for access to Trinidadian territory to defend the people of Guyana, my government will unflinchingly provide them that access,” she said. “May good sense and peace prevail.”
She said that so far, Washington has made no formal request for access, but contended that organized criminal networks have been able to exert “significant influence in political, legislative, media, banking, security, and economic decisions, often rendering governments toothless to enact actual change to stop criminal activity. Therefore, it is shocking to hear some persons using referrals to the Caribbean region as a zone of peace to push negative commentary on the U.S. military deployment against these terrorist cartels. The U.S. military is operating legally in international waters within the region and has not breached any nation’s sovereignty.”
Former Prime Minister Keith Rowley, meanwhile, has bashed the administration for abandoning collective regional diplomatic efforts to solve problems, saying this is setting a dangerous precedent. He said “past aggressive, frenetic Caricom leadership” efforts to solve problems without force worked seamlessly.
“With this legacy in the face of the intractable issues surrounding us, Trinidad and Tobago has now set our decades-old successful foreign policy alight as a beacon to advocates of the Monroe Doctrine,” Rowley argued.
No other Caribbean country has publicly supported American plans so far.