Delcy’s Grenada visit question revives questions on T&T-Venezuela tensions

A Grena­di­an jour­nal­ist’s on-the-spot ques­tion to Venezuela’s in­ter­im pres­i­dent has drawn at­ten­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go, ask­ing Del­cy Ro­driguez why she chose Grena­da as her in­ter­na­tion­al vis­it be­fore she piv­ots to ask, why not Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In the brief clip post­ed on WPG 10's Face­book page, jour­nal­ist and talk show host Cal­is­tra Far­ri­er walks along­side Ro­driguez and Grena­da Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell.

She asks, "Of all the coun­tries in the Caribbean you chose Grena­da first, why?"

To which Ro­driguez re­sponds in Eng­lish, "It's a neigh­bour, very close to us."

She had bare­ly fin­ished her sen­tence be­fore Far­ri­er shot back, "Trinidad is close to you!"

Ro­driguez replies, "Yea but we have re­la­tions with Grena­da."

Far­ri­er then asks if there were any oth­er coun­tries Ro­driguez planned to vis­it but she said not at this time.

Grena­da’s Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell fa­mous­ly turned down a Unit­ed States re­quest for a radar in­stal­la­tion on the is­land.

Ro­dríguez’s vis­it to Grena­da was de­scribed by the Grena­di­an gov­ern­ment as her first of­fi­cial trip abroad since as­sum­ing of­fice.

Ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cial com­mu­niqué, dis­cus­sions with Mitchell fo­cused on bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing en­er­gy, eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, cli­mate-smart agri­cul­ture, ed­u­ca­tion and cul­tur­al ex­change.

The vis­it took place in what was de­scribed as a “cor­dial and con­struc­tive at­mos­phere”, aimed at strength­en­ing ties be­tween the two coun­tries.

Af­ter near­ly a year of evad­ing the ques­tion For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has con­firmed that the Gov­ern­ment now recog­nis­es Del­cy Ro­dríguez as Venezuela’s in­ter­im pres­i­dent.

For over six years Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was open­ly crit­i­cal of Ro­dríguez and Venezuela’s lead­er­ship, at one point call­ing for sanc­tions to be placed on Trinidad and To­ba­go when Ro­driguez vis­it­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go dur­ing the COVID-19 Pan­dem­ic.

Now in gov­ern­ment and with Nico­las Maduro out of gov­ern­ment and with Ro­driguez hav­ing the back­ing of the US, Per­sad-Bisses­sar has an­nounced that a diplo­mat­ic del­e­ga­tion will soon trav­el to Venezuela to pur­sue en­er­gy in­ter­ests, in­clud­ing cross-bor­der oil and gas re­sources.

“Short­ly, a diplo­mat­ic del­e­ga­tion will de­part Trinidad and To­ba­go to go to Venezuela to en­sure we get our just share of the oil and gas,” the PM had re­vealed at a fire ten­der han­dover cer­e­mo­ny in Pe­nal.