Demerara Waves Online News- Guyana Riding on the Crest of Truth
Last Updated on Saturday, 14 September 2024, 22:22 by Writer
President Irfaan Ali and President Nicolás Maduro after the latter received a gift of a bottle of rum and a coin. At centre is St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves (file picture).
St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves on Saturday said the declaration of President Nicolás Maduro as the winner of last July’s election was in the best interest of Guyana’s oil sector.
He told Demerara Waves Online News in Georgetown shortly after witnessing the last rites for the late Guyanese and international statesman, Sir Shridath Ramphal, that he believed that Venezuelans rejected the right wing opposition, a move that redounded to the security of Guyana’s rapidly developing oil industry.
“If you have a choice between Maduro and the right wing in Venezuela, I advise you to choose Maduro. The right wing will seek to allow the Americans to take the oil in Venezuela, to set up to take over PDVSA (state oil company) and try to run Guyana’s oil industry from Caracas,” said Dr Gonsalves, a left-leaning Caribbean leader who was the first to have congratulated Mr Maduro on his victory at the July 28, 2024 elections. Quizzed about his support very early for the outcome of Venezuela’s elections, Dr Gonsalves said he was concerned that everything was done according to the law. “I keep myself very clear on these matters. When you have a voice like mine and it sounds discordant to what imperialism wants, they drum up all their noises and roll all their propaganda arms to drown me out, well, drown out the truth,” he said.
At the same time, he vowed never to side with that country to take military action to seize Guyana’s Essequibo Region. “Anytime, if Venezuela attempts to do anything militarily, you’ll hear that I speak against it… Under anybody. No war. You have a problem, you talk about, you solve it,” he said. Dr Gonsalves described as “my friend” Guyana’s President, Irfaan Ali and the Venezuelan leader and so his primary interest was ensuring peace. “I want peace between Venezuela and Guyana in the same way I want piece across the Taiwan Straits, same way I want peace in Ukraine,” he said.
St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Brazil had been instrumental in getting Presidents Ali and Maduro to agree to the Argyle Declaration for Dialogue and Peace.
He claimed that the right wing had been taunting Mr Maduro, telling Venezuelans that their President had to compromise with Guyana because they had friends in the Caribbean like the Vincentian leader. The Vincentian leader, one of the longest serving Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Heads of Government and historically an ally of the then Marxist-Leninist People’s Progressive Party (PPP), pointed out that the right wing was always aggressive towards Guyana in pressing the claim for the Essequibo Region. “The right wing historically in Venezuela has been always pushing against Guyana,” he said.
Dr Gonsalves defended his declaration that “on the evidence before me” Venezuela’s July 28, 2024 elections were “fair and free” was done based on the United States’ historical posture towards elections including the toppling of democratically elected governments of Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela and H0nduras over the decades dating from the 1970s to the 200os. “America can’t teach me about elections and democracy. In my lifetime, I watched what has happened,” he said.
Stressing that St Vincent and the Grenadines favoured a “peaceful resolution of any conflict” between Guyana and Venezuela, Dr Gonsalves reasoned that a right wing administration in that Spanish-speaking country would want to mobilise troops to enter Guyana but the socialist movement from Chavez to Maduro have not done so.
The Vincentian leader made no reference to the Maduro administration’s referendum in late 2023 that he had claimed had supported the inclusion of Essequibo as part of Venezuela, and the naming of Essequibo as a military zone. He also did not allude to the movement of Venezuelan troops near the border with Guyana for several weeks as well as the accompanying sabre-rattling. However, he highlighted that since the elections, nothing else has been said about the Essequibo Region. “Since the elections, have we heard anything out of Venezuela where they are talking anything about moving troops inside of Guyana? Now, I am a practical man of affairs. I know everybody got their politics to play. What I want is peace so that Guyana can continue to prosper,” he said. Instead, he said it was the right wing forces in Venezuela who were drumming up noise about the border.
Guyana and neighbouring Suriname, which are both attracting major United States investments in their oil sectors, had signed on to a joint statement calling for a verification of the ballots cast in Venezuela’s elections. Guyana’s Foreign Secretary, Robert Persaud had said those states, “including Caribbean leftists which seek to justify rigging, must decide which side of history they want to be on.”
US Ambassador to Guyana and CARICOM, Nicole Theriot had expressed disappointment that other regional bloc nations had not inked the joint statement. The Vincentian Prime Minister on Saturday, however, shrugged off suggestions that he might be regarded as anti-American. “I’ve said repeatedly that the Americans are our friends. I have excellent relations with the Americans. The American society and civilisation is an amazing one of science and technology but we have seen historically, they have not yet been able to get out from the ghost of Munroe. In this backyard, their backyard or their front yard or whatever they call it, they must control it,” he said. The US’ Munroe Doctrine was aimed at controlling economic and political interests in the Western Hemisphere including the Caribbean.
The leaders of the left-leaning independent nations of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) – Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines – had said “we congratulate President Nicolás Maduro Moros, on his victory and re-election to the Presidency of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for a third term and urge that every effort be made towards national reconciliation.”
They were also beneficiary nations of cheaper oil under Venezuela’s PetroCaribe arrangement and the socialist-oriented Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP).