Kamla, Sobers hope for democratic transition in Venezuela

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has moved to clar­i­fy Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion amid Venezuela’s deep­en­ing po­lit­i­cal cri­sis, in­sist­ing her Gov­ern­ment will not back any in­di­vid­ual leader but sup­ports a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion an­chored in free and fair elec­tions.

“I have no is­sue with who­ev­er is se­lect­ed to run a tran­si­tion gov­ern­ment as long as free and fair de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions are the end re­sult in the near fu­ture,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in a What­sApp ex­change with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

“I want to make it clear, I sup­port free and fair de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions, I do not sup­port any spe­cif­ic per­son or or­gan­i­sa­tion. The Venezue­lan peo­ple must choose their lead­ers, if they choose Del­cy Ro­driguez or Maria Macha­do, or any­one else through fair elec­tions, my Gov­ern­ment will work with them.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ad­dressed long-stand­ing Unit­ed States claims that its mil­i­tary pres­ence in the Caribbean is aimed at drug in­ter­dic­tion rather than regime change.

“Every­one will have their opin­ion on the pres­ence of the US mil­i­tary in the re­gion. I sup­port any ini­tia­tive or ac­tion that im­proves the lives of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

She fur­ther re­ject­ed claims that T&T played any role in Sat­ur­day’s ki­net­ic strike in Venezuela, which re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cil­ia Flo­res.

“To­day, just like yes­ter­day, was an or­di­nary day in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The ex­tra­or­di­nary event that you re­fer to hap­pened in Venezuela, and Trinidad and To­ba­go was not a par­tic­i­pant in it. Cit­i­zens just like my­self went about our usu­al busi­ness. Some per­sons, for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons or com­mer­cial rea­sons, may be des­per­ate to man­u­fac­ture a cri­sis where there is none, but to each his own.”

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers echoed the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion hours ear­li­er, say­ing Gov­ern­ment re­mains fo­cused on sta­bil­i­ty and due process, even as ques­tions in­ten­si­fy over the Unit­ed States’ dra­mat­ic re­moval of Pres­i­dent Maduro.

As Venezuela en­ters a volatile tran­si­tion pe­ri­od, Sobers sought to draw a clear dis­tinc­tion be­tween T&T and the un­fold­ing cri­sis.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go made its po­si­tion quite clear, very, very pel­lu­cid that we did not par­tic­i­pate in any of the ki­net­ic ac­tiv­i­ties that took place in Venezuela or in Cara­cas yes­ter­day,” Sobers said at a UNC me­dia con­fer­ence.

Sobers was the sole mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil to ad­dress the na­tion at a live me­dia brief­ing since the mil­i­tary ac­tion in Venezuela. He not­ed that while pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures had been tak­en in Port-of- Spain, there was no in­di­ca­tion of any im­mi­nent threat to the coun­try.

“I don’t know at all, re­spect­ful­ly, that Venezuela con­sid­ers Trinidad and To­ba­go com­plic­it in any­thing.”

Pressed on how Gov­ern­ment views Venezuela’s new po­lit­i­cal re­al­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez now wide­ly re­gard­ed as hold­ing pow­er, Sobers said: “We stand on the side of a safe, se­cure, trans­par­ent, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion.”

While US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has spo­ken open­ly about Venezuela’s oil sec­tor fol­low­ing Maduro’s re­moval, re­marks that ap­peared to sug­gest regime change rather than drug in­ter­dic­tion, Sobers main­tained Wash­ing­ton’s mil­i­tary pos­ture in the re­gion re­mains fo­cused on transna­tion­al crime.

“Our po­si­tion still stands as it was be­fore. The mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion with­in the Caribbean re­gion was based up­on transna­tion­al crime. That has nev­er changed. The US’s po­si­tion on that, as far as we are aware, has nev­er changed.”

He said the PM had de­lib­er­ate­ly avoid­ed in­flam­ma­to­ry lan­guage, even as crit­i­cism emerged from Cara­cas. But when asked di­rect­ly who the Gov­ern­ment recog­nis­es as Venezuela’s leader, he de­clined to name any­one.

Ques­tions sur­round­ing videos cir­cu­lat­ing on­line, which pur­port­ed to show re­cent mil­i­tary move­ments near Ch­aguara­mas, were brushed aside, with Sobers cit­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty sen­si­tiv­i­ties. He not­ed that both na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ters were in meet­ings with the prime min­is­ter and there­fore un­avail­able to ad­dress the pub­lic.

How­ev­er, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath yes­ter­day crit­i­cised Gov­ern­ment’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy.

“There should have been a more de­fin­i­tive state­ment com­ing from the Gov­ern­ment, es­pe­cial­ly since Trinidad and To­ba­go was threat­ened on many oc­ca­sions by the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment.”

Maduro and his wife are cur­rent­ly be­ing held at a de­ten­tion cen­tre in New York on drugs and weapons charges. De­spite his ar­rest, el­e­ments of his ad­min­is­tra­tion con­tin­ue to as­sert con­trol in Cara­cas.

De­fence Min­is­ter Vladimir Padri­no López has con­demned Maduro’s de­ten­tion as an act of kid­nap­ping and de­clared sup­port for Ro­dríguez as act­ing pres­i­dent.

In a state­ment is­sued by the Min­istry of Peo­ple’s Pow­er for De­fence, Padri­no López said the mil­i­tary re­mains loy­al to Maduro.

“The Na­tion­al Bo­li­var­i­an Armed Forces force­ful­ly re­ject the cow­ard­ly kid­nap­ping of cit­i­zen Nicolás Maduro Mo­ros, con­sti­tu­tion­al Pres­i­dent of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela, our Com­man­der in Chief, and of his wife, the First La­dy Dr. Cil­ia Flo­res de Maduro; an act per­pe­trat­ed yes­ter­day, Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 3rd of this year, af­ter the cold-blood­ed mur­der of a large part of his se­cu­ri­ty team, sol­diers, and in­no­cent cit­i­zens.”

The mil­i­tary lead­er­ship al­so ex­pressed sup­port for Ro­dríguez, sig­nalling no im­me­di­ate in­ter­nal pow­er strug­gle.