Expert: Phone chat between Maduro, Trump has not eased tensions

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Lec­tur­er at the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, Dr Michał Paw­ińs­ki, says the ver­sion of what hap­pened in a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion be­tween US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro so­lid­i­fies that there is no ease in ten­sion be­tween the two coun­tries.

Ear­li­er this week, Trump con­firmed he had a phone con­ver­sa­tion with Maduro but did not dis­close the de­tails. How­ev­er, re­ports sug­gest Maduro dis­cussed a deal that would see him step down in ex­change for help for him and his fam­i­ly.

Speak­ing dur­ing the event on Wednes­day, which was tele­vised live, Maduro said, “If this call means steps are be­ing tak­en to­ward a re­spect­ful di­a­logue be­tween our coun­tries, then di­a­logue is wel­come, diplo­ma­cy is wel­come.”

He said the call was cor­dial with re­spect and diplo­ma­cy, adding that the best path for both coun­tries was one of peace.

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue yes­ter­day, Paw­ińs­ki said the call did not shift the US pol­i­cy to­wards Venezuela in any way.

“I would not read any­thing sig­nif­i­cant in­to that. I think there has not been any sig­nif­i­cant change to­wards Venezuela be­cause there has been no sig­nif­i­cant ne­go­ti­a­tions or me­di­a­tion be­tween Venezuela and Unit­ed States to make this change. I don’t see any­thing head­ing to­wards sta­bil­i­ty any time soon.”

He added that the ob­jec­tive of the US is not chang­ing and will not be­cause it is fo­cused on ac­cess to Venezuela’s re­sources.

Asked if T&T should re­view its po­si­tion to­wards Venezuela based on Maduro’s ver­sion of events, Paw­ińs­ki said yes.

“As a neigh­bour of Venezuela, from the long-term per­spec­tive, the cur­rent ap­proach of, as you said, an­tag­o­nis­tic to­wards Venezuela, might not be the most ben­e­fi­cial for the re­la­tion­ship be­tween both coun­tries. The for­eign pol­i­cy should be en­vi­sion­ing the fu­ture ir­re­spec­tive of the cur­rent ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela.”

He added that this coun­try’s po­si­tion on Cari­com should al­so change, as small na­tions tend to have a dif­fi­cult time jostling with oth­er larg­er coun­tries in­de­pen­dent­ly.

In Oc­to­ber, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Cari­com was no longer a “re­li­able part­ner” with the coun­try as the re­gion­al bloc seem­ing­ly chose Venezuela over T&T. Her claim came as re­gion­al lead­ers called for the re­gion to re­main a zone of peace, some­thing Per­sad-Bisses­sar said could not be as the coun­try was rav­aged by the ef­fects of gun and drug smug­gling which the US is blam­ing on Venezuela’s han­dling of nar­co-traf­fick­ing.

Paw­ińs­ki said: “Small states are on­ly strong when they col­lab­o­rate, so it is im­por­tant for Trinidad to main­tain good re­la­tions with oth­er Cari­com coun­tries and find a com­mon ground to­wards the cur­rent re­la­tion­ship be­tween Venezuela and Unit­ed States rather than Trinidad dis­tanc­ing it­self from Cari­com.”

Mean­while, Emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions An­tho­ny Bryan was more char­i­ta­ble, say­ing he be­lieves Maduro’s ver­sion of the con­ver­sa­tion could be a pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment.

“It would be an eas­ing of the ten­sion, if both of them talked and they came to some pos­i­tive con­clu­sion. But, you know, it’s hard to tell. I’m not in any of their heads, you know?”

The men spoke even as the As­sem­bly of Caribbean Peo­ple con­demned what it called the mur­ders of sup­posed nar­co-traf­fick­ers at the or­ders of Trump.

Since its first air strike on Sep­tem­ber 2, the US has killed over 80 peo­ple it claimed were nar­co-traf­fick­ers in Caribbean wa­ters. The first strike is now the sub­ject of in­tense in­ter­na­tion­al scruti­ny, af­ter it was re­vealed that sur­vivors were at­tacked while cling­ing for life in open wa­ters af­ter a first air strike de­stroyed their ves­sel.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the as­sem­bly claimed Per­sad-Bisses­sar and those who sup­port Trump’s ac­tions in the re­gion are now com­plic­it in their mur­der.

The as­sem­bly will host a peace vig­il in which they will deal with the is­sue on Sun­day.