PM shrugs off Venezuelan leader’s trips

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she has “no con­cerns” that Trinidad and To­ba­go is be­ing de­lib­er­ate­ly side­lined by act­ing Pres­i­dent of Venezuela Del­cy Ro­dríguez, de­spite her re­cent meet­ings with re­gion­al lead­ers in Bar­ba­dos and Grena­da.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar sought to as­sure Guardian Me­dia that talks be­tween both coun­tries con­tin­ue, fol­low­ing her an­nounce­ment this month that a diplo­mat­ic del­e­ga­tion would be sent to Venezuela to se­cure T&T’s “just share” of cross-bor­der oil and gas re­sources.

On April 27, Ro­dríguez met with Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, se­cur­ing agree­ments on en­er­gy, food pro­duc­tion, and air con­nec­tiv­i­ty, along with an in­vi­ta­tion to in­vest in Venezuela’s oil and gas sec­tor.

Ear­li­er, on April 9, she held talks with Grena­da’s Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell, where both sides agreed to deep­en co­op­er­a­tion in en­er­gy, agri­cul­ture, and trade, and to pur­sue a roadmap on mar­itime bound­aries and re­gion­al trans­port.

A Grena­di­an jour­nal­ist asked Ro­driguez why she chose to meet with Grena­da be­fore her clos­est ge­o­graph­i­cal neigh­bour in Cari­com, T&T. The Venezue­lan act­ing Pres­i­dent sim­ply re­spond­ed, “We have re­la­tions with Grena­da.”

On April 24, Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young sparked a fresh diplo­mat­ic firestorm fol­low­ing a so­cial me­dia post of a hand­shake with Ro­dríguez. Young’s use of the hash­tag #per­son­agra­ta was wide­ly in­ter­pret­ed as a tar­get­ed cri­tique of the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion’s strained re­la­tions with Cara­cas.

The Gov­ern­ment has since moved to con­demn the meet­ing, with En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal ac­cus­ing Young of en­gag­ing in “rogue diplo­ma­cy” that threat­ens sen­si­tive en­er­gy ne­go­ti­a­tions with multi­na­tion­al part­ners.

Young has dis­missed the al­le­ga­tions as a po­lit­i­cal dis­trac­tion, main­tain­ing that his pro­fes­sion­al en­gage­ments re­main in the best in­ter­est of the na­tion­al pub­lic.

With no an­nounce­ment of any up­com­ing meet­ings with this coun­try, Guardian Me­dia asked Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar if she be­lieves Ro­driguez is in­ten­tion­al­ly leav­ing this coun­try out of her Cari­com tour.

“I have no con­cerns,” she re­spond­ed.

Asked what the re­la­tion­ship is right now be­tween her­self and Ro­driguez, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “Well, my Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs is com­mu­ni­cat­ing with them.”

How­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter re­turned to the ini­tial ques­tion, ad­dress­ing con­cerns that amid strained re­la­tions, the Venezue­lan leader may be de­lib­er­ate­ly over­look­ing T&T.

“I have no prob­lem. She has to do what she has to do and I have to do what I have to do.”

Asked if she views the Venezue­lan leader’s vis­its to Grena­da and Bar­ba­dos as a slight to this coun­try:

“Not at all, not at all, not at all. She was sanc­tioned and she couldn’t go any­where. Sanc­tions are now lift­ed and she’s go­ing every­where. I have no prob­lem, please, that is not an is­sue for me. Be­cause we have shares.”

The PM has pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed that T&T “part­ly owns” the Drag­on Gas field’s re­sources through the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC). By se­cur­ing a 30-year ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion li­cence in late 2023, the NGC be­came a le­gal eq­ui­ty part­ner in the Drag­on field along­side Shell. In her view, this isn’t just a pur­chase agree­ment but a pro­pri­etary in­ter­est that T&T must now de­fend to en­sure the coun­try re­ceives the eco­nom­ic re­turns promised by that part­ner­ship.

Yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter un­der­scored that a diplo­mat­ic team will be sent to Venezuela but gave no de­tails on when it will de­part or who will form part of the del­e­ga­tion, de­spite re­peat­ed ques­tions for those de­tails.

“My Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs is work­ing with their For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Sev­er­al ef­forts to con­tact Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, in­clud­ing calls and mes­sages, were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.

The re­la­tion­ship be­tween Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Ro­dríguez has been de­fined by in­tense diplo­mat­ic hos­til­i­ty and pub­lic ver­bal spar­ring. Ten­sions cul­mi­nat­ed in Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­ing de­clared per­sona non gra­ta by Venezuela fol­low­ing her sup­port for US re­gion­al mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty.

But Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer min­is­ter of for­eign af­fairs Dr Amery Browne is ques­tion­ing what he called the Prime Min­is­ter’s “un­found­ed” and “un­rea­son­able” op­ti­mism.

“Be­cause to do oth­er­wise would be to ad­mit the true cost of the dis­re­spect and the undiplo­mat­ic bel­liger­ence that she and her min­is­ters have dis­played to­ward Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez and the Gov­ern­ment of Venezuela,” Browne told Guardian Me­dia.

The sen­a­tor crit­i­cised her for lean­ing yet again on her For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter.

“Just as with the re­cent scan­dal caused by her ab­sence from key Cari­com fo­ra, she piv­ots to the gar­gan­tu­an in­ep­ti­tude of Sean Sobers as a shield from re­al­i­ty.”

Browne con­trast­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s ap­proach with that of Venezue­lan leader Del­cy Ro­dríguez, de­scrib­ing Ro­dríguez as “a high­ly ex­pe­ri­enced diplo­mat” who un­der­stands the com­plex­i­ties of the Drag­on gas field.

“Pres­i­dent Ro­dríguez al­so has mea­sured her words quite wise­ly, and her ac­tions, in­clud­ing Cari­com coun­tries vis­it­ed and avoid­ed, are not hap­haz­ard or ill-con­sid­ered,” Browne said.

He ar­gued that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment has al­ways cau­tioned the Gov­ern­ment about its for­eign pol­i­cy pos­ture, warn­ing that a lack of diplo­ma­cy could car­ry con­se­quences.

“The truth is that the Op­po­si­tion has been con­sis­tent in warn­ing the Prime Min­is­ter that her dis­re­gard for diplo­ma­cy will bring a harsh price for Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said, adding that the Prime Min­is­ter ap­peared to be “tak­ing her mark from fur­ther afield.”

Browne was al­so crit­i­cal of the Gov­ern­ment’s an­nounce­ment that it in­tends to send a del­e­ga­tion to Venezuela for talks, ques­tion­ing whether prop­er diplo­mat­ic pro­to­cols had been fol­lowed.

“Even the man­ner in which she in­tro­duced to the pub­lic her scheme to dis­patch a mis­sion to Venezuela for ‘dis­cus­sions’ was com­plete­ly dis­re­spect­ful and in­con­sis­tent with diplo­mat­ic norms,” he said.

He stressed that such en­gage­ments typ­i­cal­ly re­quire a for­mal in­vi­ta­tion by the host coun­try and urged the me­dia to press for clar­i­ty on whether that process had been ob­served.

“It would be in­struc­tive for the me­dia to ask the Prime Min­is­ter if such an in­vi­ta­tion has been re­ceived,” Browne added.