Ex-diplomat says Venezuela insulted T&T

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

A for­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go diplo­mat be­lieves this coun­try was “diplo­mat­i­cal­ly in­sult­ed” dur­ing For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers’ vis­it to Cara­cas, ar­gu­ing that Venezuela’s ac­tions, rather than the cor­dial lan­guage con­tained in a joint state­ment, show re­la­tions re­main far from re­paired.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, the for­mer diplo­mat said the clear­est in­di­ca­tion came from the lev­el at which Sobers was re­ceived, es­pe­cial­ly when com­pared with Venezuela’s re­cent en­gage­ments with Grena­da and Bar­ba­dos.

He point­ed to act­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez’s vis­it to Grena­da and the re­cent trip to Cara­cas by Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, both of which in­volved di­rect en­gage­ment at the high­est po­lit­i­cal lev­el.

By con­trast, Sobers met Venezue­lan For­eign Min­is­ter Félix Plasen­cia on Thurs­day, while Ro­dríguez was ab­sent from the talks.

For the for­mer diplo­mat, that dif­fer­ence spoke vol­umes.

“We went and they sent a ju­nior to meet a ju­nior,” he said.

“So you look at the ac­tions.”

He ar­gued that, stripped of diplo­mat­ic niceties, the lev­el at which Trinidad and To­ba­go was re­ceived amount­ed to Venezuela ef­fec­tive­ly telling this coun­try to “go to hell.”

The for­mer diplo­mat al­so not­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go ini­ti­at­ed the lat­est en­gage­ment. He ar­gued that if Ro­dríguez gen­uine­ly want­ed to put ten­sions be­hind both coun­tries, she could have reached out di­rect­ly to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“If there was a thaw, Del­cy would have by now writ­ten to Kam­la and said, ‘Let’s bury the hatch­et,’” he said. “She didn’t do that. We made the ini­tia­tive.”

He cau­tioned against in­ter­pret­ing the cor­dial state­ments emerg­ing from Cara­cas as proof that re­la­tions have im­proved.

“You don’t judge by what they write and what they say. That’s diplo­ma­cy,” he said. “Some­body comes to your place, you’re re­quired to tell them nice things.”

“Judge me not by what I say, judge me by my ac­tions.”

Ac­cord­ing to the for­mer diplo­mat, “any se­ri­ous stu­dent of in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions” re­view­ing the en­gage­ment would con­clude: “That is not a warm em­brace.”

He sug­gest­ed Ro­dríguez may in­stead be buy­ing time ahead of the Unit­ed States midterm elec­tions in No­vem­ber, af­ter which he be­lieves the po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment fac­ing the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion could change sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

He the­o­rised that De­mo­c­ra­t­ic gains in Con­gress could bring greater scruti­ny of US for­eign pol­i­cy, in­clud­ing the op­er­a­tion that re­moved Nicolás Maduro from pow­er and Trinidad and To­ba­go’s role dur­ing that pe­ri­od.

“I think she is play­ing for time,” he said.

The for­mer diplo­mat be­lieves Ro­dríguez re­mains un­der pres­sure and cur­rent­ly has lit­tle choice but to work with Wash­ing­ton. How­ev­er, he said No­vem­ber could be­come a turn­ing point.

“She’s just wait­ing for when No­vem­ber comes,” he said. “De­pend­ing on what takes place, you’re go­ing to see the truth.”

He pre­dict­ed that lin­ger­ing re­sent­ment could even­tu­al­ly be di­rect­ed at Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause of a per­cep­tion among Venezue­lans that this coun­try as­sist­ed Wash­ing­ton dur­ing the cam­paign against Maduro.

“To the av­er­age Venezue­lan, whether we like it or not, we played a part,” he said, warn­ing that ques­tions about Trinidad and To­ba­go’s role could even­tu­al­ly resur­face.

“Peo­ple do not for­get. And Venezue­lans will not al­low us to for­get.”

De­spite his scep­ti­cism, the for­mer diplo­mat said send­ing Sobers to Cara­cas was strate­gi­cal­ly prefer­able to Per­sad-Bisses­sar per­son­al­ly lead­ing ef­forts to mend re­la­tions.

He ar­gued that the Prime Min­is­ter should re­main “above the fray” on sen­si­tive for­eign pol­i­cy mat­ters, al­low­ing her For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter to con­duct dif­fi­cult ne­go­ti­a­tions while pre­serv­ing room for in­ter­ven­tion at the lead­er­ship lev­el if nec­es­sary.

“This is good in the sense that you have sent out Sobers,” he said.

How­ev­er, he al­so ques­tioned what tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits Trinidad and To­ba­go has gained from its align­ment with Wash­ing­ton, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

He ar­gued that US li­cences in­volv­ing Venezue­lan gas have strength­ened the po­si­tion of multi­na­tion­al en­er­gy com­pa­nies while leav­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go de­pen­dent on arrange­ments in­volv­ing firms such as Shell and BP.

“What are you get­ting out of all of this?” he asked.

For the for­mer diplo­mat, the lat­est en­gage­ment rep­re­sents an op­por­tu­ni­ty for di­a­logue rather than ev­i­dence that re­la­tions have been re­paired.

“There is noth­ing in the re­al­i­ty of this thing that sug­gests that there is har­mo­ny,” he said.

“The last thing is, what are the re­sults of this thing? Tan­gi­ble re­sults. Not nice talk.”

For­mer For­eign Af­fairs min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an al­so views the lat­est en­gage­ment as an open­ing rather than proof that re­la­tions have been re­stored, de­scrib­ing it as a large­ly sym­bol­ic first step.

Dook­er­an said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s per­sona non gra­ta sta­tus will even­tu­al­ly have to be ad­dressed if Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela are to ful­ly re­store diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, it will have to be dealt with in or­der to have full-blown diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions,” Dook­er­an told Guardian Me­dia.

“But the tim­ing of that will be much lat­er.”

He cau­tioned against ex­pect­ing any im­me­di­ate sub­stan­tive break­through from the Cara­cas en­gage­ment.

“It was meant to say that we still have the prospect of build­ing a diplo­mat­ic re­la­tion in spite of the past. But we are not yet ready to dis­cuss any de­tails,” he said.

“So I think it was just a sym­bol­ic meet­ing and an open step.”

Dook­er­an sug­gest­ed this al­so ex­plains why the Gov­ern­ment has pro­vid­ed lim­it­ed in­for­ma­tion about what emerged from the dis­cus­sions.

“The fact that no one can give you de­tails is be­cause there were no de­tails,” he said.

He added that whether the en­gage­ment ul­ti­mate­ly proves suc­cess­ful will de­pend on the agen­da de­vel­oped by both gov­ern­ments.

“Whether it’s pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive will de­pend on the fu­ture agen­da that will de­vel­op. But it’s an open step,” he said.

Dook­er­an was equal­ly cau­tious about ex­pec­ta­tions sur­round­ing en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion, ques­tion­ing re­cent op­ti­mism ex­pressed by En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal about what evolv­ing US-Venezuela en­er­gy arrange­ments could mean for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

He said ma­jor ques­tions re­main unan­swered about those arrange­ments and the tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits they could de­liv­er.

Dook­er­an ac­cused Mooni­lal of en­gag­ing in “plain op­tics” and at­tempt­ing to “cre­ate vic­to­ry when there’s no sub­stance.”

De­spite those reser­va­tions, the for­mer For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter said re­newed en­gage­ment with Venezuela re­mains worth­while.

“I see this as an open step and I see it as a sym­bol­ic step,” Dook­er­an said, “and I see it as some­thing that we must fol­low through on.”