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Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves is not pleased with Luis Almargo treatment of Venezuela during his first time as head of the OAS. (iWN photo)
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves is not pleased with Luis Almargo treatment of Venezuela during his first time as head of the OAS. (iWN photo)
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CASTRIES (CMC) — St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has made it abundantly clear that his country will not support Luis Almagro, who is seeking a second consecutive term as Secretary General of the Organisation of American States (OAS).

Gonsalves said CARICOM leaders here are expected to adopt a position regarding the candidacy during their two days of talks.

He, however, made clear Kingstown position on a possible second term for the Uruguayan lawyer, diplomat, and politician, who he described as having been divisive particularly as it relates to the situation in Venezuela, where opposition forces backed by the United States are seeking to remove President Nicolas Maduro from office.

“I believe out of this conference, this meeting, you will probably have a common position against the candidacy of Almagro. He is too divisive and he is not good for the unity of the OAS and fo Latin America and Caribbean unity,” Gonsalves told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).

Almagro was present at the ceremonial opening of the CARICOM summit here on Wednesday night, but one Caribbean prime minister made it clear that the Almargo “will not be entertained” given that his presence here was not in an official capacity.

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Gonsalves said the unity within the OAS “is vital than one individual” and wanted to made it clear “that I am not making a comment against Almagro as an individual, as a personality, I am not questioning his integrity, I am not doing any of those things.

“Quite clearly, he is an individual of merit and worth … but his policy and the way in which he has used OAS explicitly as a partisan battering ram against a member state — well Venezuela is no longer a member state though they have incorporated (Juan) Guaido as a representative…”

Guaido has declared himself as the interim president of the South American country and the OAS last week passed a resolution endorsing his nominee as the Venezuelan representative at the hemispheric body.

Gonsalves said he is certain that Almagro “will know that I will not support him”, adding that while he does not know whether all 14 CARICOM countries would vote for a second term, “I believe there is a substantial majority” who will not support the Uruguayan.

“I am just speaking from my assessment and from my interaction with colleagues. I obviously can’t speak for all of them,” Gonsalves said.

16 replies on “SVG opposes re-election of OAS head over Venezuela impasse”

  1. Elma Gabriel says:

    These are crucial times that the OAS is taken serious by the rest of the world as a united Populate. The PM is wise in His stance. Unification should be our focus and the undivided message from our region and of our people on a whole.

  2. Ralph Gonsalves should be hanging his head in shame for supporting the murderous regime of Nicolas Maduro against a background of murders and other gross abuse against the Venezuelan people.

    “Venezuelan government used ‘death squads’ in many of the 6,800 killings by Nicolas Maduro’s forces and planted guns and drugs at crime scenes to justify the attacks, UN claims”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7214211/UN-5-287-killings-Venezuela-security-operations-2018.html

    “Families of 20 men described how masked soldiers dressed in black from Venezuela’s Special Action Forces (FAES) arrived in black pickups without licence plates. In the accounts, the death squads broke into houses, took belongings and assaulted women and girls, sometimes stripping them naked”.

  3. My question for you Elma Gabriel is, what do you and others here think of the continuing outrage in Venezuela and abroad over the death of a detained navy captain, one Rafael Acosta Arevalo, in Maduro’s Venezuela, where his family together with the Opposition leader Guaido and the U.S government, are blaming the Maduro’s government for this very sad death of this former navy officer?

    Why are you and others here in SVG so blinded by dogma, refusing to accept that your stance on Venezuela is just plain and simply gross?

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/07/venezuela-outrage-death-detained-navy-captain-190701092427512.html

    We see that the Venezuela’s defence ministry on Sunday last, has indeed confirmed the sad death of this naval officer, captain Rafael Acosta Arevalo, who both the opposition leaders and Arevalo family members has said was badly tortured while in custody, after his reported detention over alleged involvement in a coup plot against President Nicolas Maduro.

    How does such terrible abuse of power stands with both you and our Vincentian government leadership Elma Gabriel? Why no moral outrage against this brutal Venezuelan dictator?

  4. It just goes to show what kind of unsavoury regime our St Vincent and the Grenadines administration unwaveringly supports, when it calls on the O.A.S to stay out of Nicaragua’s Internal Affairs. Nothing but dreadful shame should follows our own family lead regime here, led by the Ralph Gonsalves family who uses the Vincentian people as a stepping stone for their own ends.

    In Nicaragua itself, Supreme Court judge Rafael Solís has accused Daniel Ortega of transforming his country into a ‘state of terror’ in a resignation letter. Nicaragua he said is closer to a new civil war than ever before, this judge warns!
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/11/nicaragua-rafael-solis-ortega-civil-war-resignation-letter

    “In his letter, published on Thursday, Solís called himself “an ex-Sandinista militant” and said he was resigning because Nicaragua had become a dictatorship resembling an absolute monarchy with two kings: Ortega and his powerful first lady and vice-president, Rosario Murillo”.

    Yet our own family run regime, is issuing a solidity support for its unsavoury tyrant friend Daniel Ortega via the OAS. SVG Minister of Social Development, Frederick Stephenson, issued a call as he addressed the 49th Session, of the OAS General Assembly held in Columbia, from June 26th to the 28th. A call and support for its unsavoury tyrant friend Daniel Otega, saying that the Organisation of American States should stay out of Nicaragua’s Internal Affairs.

    Indeed, whatever little creditability this Gomsalves family run government of ours ever thought they had among serious thinking Vincentians, it has now most surely has been shown in that to be utterly worthlessly misplaced.

    This wholly self-interested ruling Gonsalves family of ours sure belongs in the same company as that of other undemocratic tyrannical rulers of the past the likes of Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Nicolae Ceaușescu, and Fidel Castro.

    Well may we learn the Gonsalves family ways before it becomes far too late for us and our sufferings thus becomes like those of the Nicaraguan and Venezuelan peoples! Let us heed the warnings from history. https://www.iwnsvg.com/2019/06/09/if-they-come-for-me-in-the-morning/

  5. James I am not saying the information given us misleading but remember the Iraqi issue when the USA concocted a story to say that patients were snatched off their beds in Iraqi in order to justify the Iraq invasion. Remember the crying lady on TV. She was in fact the ambassador’s daughter. Remember the USA lied yesterday and they will lie tomorrow.

    1. Elma Gabriel says:

      Thanks Jose for reminding ‘Jolly Green-(Giant)’ and ‘James H’ of the depth to which those deceptive manipulators would go through their greed and selfishness.

    2. Jose. I agree! Not saying that James H. is wrong because the information and wisdom he brings to this site is one of my most cherished sources of information that I have more trust in than most others. He is even well-versed on ancient and Christian literature. You can not even say that all of the Christian or otherwise information is true, but it is up to the reader to decide. i believe that what you want to say to James is the same as I would say: WE NEVER KNOW IF ANYTHING COMING FROM THE CORPORATE GLOBAL MEDIA IS TRUE. Sometimes even the unbiased people get it wrong. I left a post stating that there is so much fake news, fake science and fake, fake, fake, fake. Even film footage is often fake. I saw films “proving that Iran or Syria are the bad guys except the footage had nothing to do with those countries and it came from years before the incident at a different location. Remember the fake videos of Bin Laden and then the faked photo of his death. The UN also said Assad gased his own people and now it has been proven that he did not. Why would he gas his own people but not gas his ISIS enemies? Maduro should make massive changes or go, but it should not be the USA to decide.

  6. Jolly Green says:

    What is wrong with you Alma? You must be in love, we know he isn’t fussy.

    Well said James.

  7. If you and others here have a problem with this unpalatable factual information, that is now readily available through opensource, just check those facts for yourself, as they are being presented by the U.N human rights body JOSÉ!

    We often know people by the company that they keep because men’s heart is often the same as their close friends.

    Hence nothing but shame and disgust rest with the supporters of such rotten regimes as those of Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela and Daniel Orteda’s Nicaragua. Both of these men have done all they could to dismantle democracy in those countries.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/16/nicaragua-protest-ortega-government-one-year

    The Ralph Gonsalves family regime here in SVG with their closeness to these Stalinist regimes and their unwavering support for the same, is a sober warning for us all!

  8. Take those dark grubby blinkers of yours off Elma Gabriel and stop being such a diehard sycophant for the men of tyranny in our region!

    Listen to what even the U.N high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, has to say in her latest disapproving damning report. [In a sign of increasing international repudiation of Maduro, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, issued a scathing report Thursday accusing Venezuela’s security forces of nearly 5,300 killings last year. Venezuelans interviewed by the human rights workers referred to a particular security unit, FAES, as a ‘death squad’ or ‘extermination group.’

    Maduro’s government has also undermined the rule of law and dismantled democratic institutions, the U.N. reported. ‘These measures are aimed at neutralising, repressing and criminalising political opponents and people critical of the Government,’ the report said.]

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7219141/Venezuelas-Nicolas-Maduro-shows-military-mark-countrys-Independence-Day.html

  9. i would never disagree with the facts that James H. finds. He supports most of what i write. He and jose and I normally always have the same general sentiments toward the dealings of most of these politicians. I appreciate C. Ben on certain topics and James H. on most everything. I especially love the quotes from wise intellectuals from history. What concerns me is that we have so much FAKE NEWS and FAKE SCIENCE to mach all the FAKE PEOPLE today. i do not believe anything just because it is in the press. Look at what they say about Assad or Putin!
    Assad has never gassed his enemies so, according to the Western Press, he gases his own people. Only stupid people can believe this stuff. If they lie to us on so many occasions why should we listen? The same press accuses Putin of all sorts of things but they NEVER HAVE ANY EVIDENCE. So we are then told that there is no evidence because Putin is so good at these operations because he used to be in the KGB, and all the stupid people fall for it. We can then go to Saddam’s Nucular Weapons and mobile Biological and Chemical labs. The list goes on and on even back to WW1.
    What I do know is Venezuela has a terrible Economic System, even before the USA started sabotaging it. SVG has only been in economic decline since Gonsalves took over; no matter how hard he tries to make us look the other way. I know nothing about these other states but I do not pay much attention to the words of politicians, only what they have done for thier country. In SVG no one really knows how high our debts are because it is all hidden from us and we never hear of any loans being paid-off, only new loans. Most of the country is unemployed and raising taxes makes it worse. Our PM can verbally support who he wishes, as long as he does not send our money or people to fight in thier wars. We are so messed-up in many ways but we are not as bad as the USA. in many ways it is a better place to live than most of the world but so much of it is a facade, a sort of FAKE COUNTRY.

  10. James it is not every written information has credence to it, therefore asking me to check out written information does no justice to facts. The integrity of a written source of information are as good as the integrity of the author. Hence the old adage” no better the beef no better the barrel.”

  11. Jolly Green says:

    I must say that all these Gonsalves sympathisers should be rounded up with Gonsalves and dumped on a beach on Roatan. I cannot believe the evil that these people have, they are probably taking instructions on what to come here and write. Because no one with an once of decency would make such remarks. Pure evil I say, may Karma repay you.

    1. Jolly Green. I am sure that neither Jose nor myself are Gonsalves sympathisers. I think the country can do much better with Ivan O’Neal or Godwin Friday. There are many of us that know that not only is the economy in SVG going the wrong direction but there are other nasty things going on as well such as all the corruption in the police to name one.
      For my part and I believe Jose as well, I do not think our present foreign policy is bad at all. Our PM can heap praise on Satan if he so wishes as long as I do not have to. Another thing: There is so much fake news that how can you tell what to believe? Another piece of FAKE NEWS was the Sandy Hook killings. There is ZERO EVIDENCE of that event happening at a school that was closed down for over a year because they found asbestos, No deaths were recorded for that town on that day. Many of the so-called parent were registered actors, and did you see when they filmed one of the parents laughing and telling jokes the day after his “daughter” allegedly died? There is NO agency listed that cleaned up the mess. They did not even have any photos except police cars around the school after the supposed event. I can write pages of all the FAKE NEWS that has come out in the past few years.

      THAT IS WHAT JOSE AND I ARE REFFERING TO. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SYMPATHY FOR ANYONE. Clearly Maduro has to go…but not to be replaced with a US puppet ruler that looks like a Spanish Obama.

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