CARICOM should seek to be interlocutor between US, Venezuela — Gonsalves

Opposition Leader Ralph Gonsalves has suggested that CARICOM should seek to play a role in the ongoing situation in which the United States has arrested the President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro and flown him to New York on drug trafficking charges.

He suggested that leaders of the regional bloc stick by the statements that they have issues, adding that the 15-member grouping of Caribbean countries, however, needs “to go a little further.

“But bear in mind that I say I want us in this region to see how we can use our sober judgement to see if we can get a resolution,” Gonsalves, a former prime minister, said at a press conference in Kingstown.

“We have to have recourse to the United Nations system, broken as it is, and we in CARICOM have to insist that the United Nations Security Council becomes permanently seized of this matter in every material particular for practical resolution,” he said.

He noted that Guyana is currently a non-permanent member of the Security Council.

“CARICOM says it’s willing to play a role. CARICOM, I’m suggesting, offers itself as a possible interlocutor because it’s directly affected, or to do so through CELAC, and to have all parties, including the United States and Venezuela, to have a mature conversation…” Gonsalves told the media in Kingstown.

Gonsalves, a strong Maduro ally, said the mature conversation should aim to ensure peace, security and inclusive development in the Caribbean and Latin America.

“And the establishment of an ongoing institutional modality to monitor and advance our collective interest in the hemisphere, and we need to have something wider than the OAS, because the OAS (Organization of American States) has its limitations,” he said.

Gonsalves, who served 24 years as prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines through November 2025, said that because CARICOM countries are “the smallest and the weakest of the partners, that we may be more disinterested, in a power sense, to be able to see if we can facilitate mature conversations.

“I don’t think that we are beyond mature conversations, because if people don’t talk, people will war.”

Gonsalves said CARICOM has to emphasise for its citizens to understand the adverse consequences of what is taking place in Venezuela.

He noted the CARICOM bureau, a group of three heads of government that makes statements on behalf of the bloc between intercessional meetings, had pointed out in a statement immediately after the capture of Maduro that every effort was being taken to ensure the safety and security of the citizens of the region.

The bureau said it would continue to monitor the multifaceted impact of this evolving situation and the implications for economic activity within CARICOM, particularly air travel.

“Well, that’s not the only issue. That’s an immediate adverse consequence — the problem with air travel,” Gonsalves said.

In the immediate aftermath of the US military operation to capture Maduro in Caracas, many flights out of the United States to the Caribbean and South America were grounded, resulting in an immediate impact on tourism a major sector of CARICOM economies.

Gonsalves noted that Trump had suggested that the then vice president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, who has since been elevated to interim president, would do Washington’s bidding.

“… but she has issued a statement — Delcy Rodriguez  — and say that’s not on the case. …  And then you can hear, subsequently, a pivot by American spokespersons.”

Gonsalves noted that the United States has spoken about access to oil and minerals in Venezuela.

Gonsalves said that Caracas, even without Maduro, does not accept the US position that Venezuela’s oil belongs to Washington and they are coming for it as reparations for the nationalisation of the sector in 1976.

The former prime minister said that installing an alternative government in Venezuela would require US boots on the ground.

“… and you are likely to have pitch battles once that takes place,” he said, adding that it is one thing to remove the president is another thing to instal an entirely different government.

“And that is when you’re going to have mayhem in this Caribbean. A lot of people are going to get killed. A lot of people going to run out of Venezuela, good and bad people, and bad people tend to take advantage of crises to make money and to carry out all kinds of actions,” Gonsalves said.

“And it’s just a short step from some Venezuela, to Trinidad, to Grenada to St. Vincent, either people transiting or coming directly, and you only need a handful of bad men and women to come to any of these islands to create mayhem, slowly at first and then with greater rapidity and descent into chaos.”

Some eight million people are estimated to have left Venezuela during Maduro’s tenure, constituting what is said to be the largest voluntary migration of people in modern times.

Gonsalves said some issues can be settled through a mature conversation between the United States and Venezuela.

“… there’re other matters, they might have to arrive at a condition of mutually agreed dissatisfaction,” he said.

Gonsalves pointed out that he had not spoken about “the role of the government of Trinidad and Tobago, and I haven’t spoken about the role of any specific government in CARICOM, because I don’t want, really for us to, in a sense, beat up on one another, make ourselves at the time when we require the greatest possible unity, that we say things which would undermine the unity…”