Cari­com's call on coun­tries to re­spect the sov­er­eign­ty of Venezuela shows they are tact­ful­ly sup­port­ing the right of Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro to re­main in of­fice un­til the coun­try's cri­sis is sort­ed out.

This was how for­mer di­rec­tor of UWI In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions Prof Andy Knight summed up Thurs­day's state­ment by Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment, fol­low­ing a video con­fer­ence meet­ing to dis­cuss the lat­est de­vel­op­ments in Venezuela.

Sit­ting in the con­fer­ence were An­tigua, Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Do­mini­ca, Ja­maica, Montser­rat, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lu­cia, St Lu­cia St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and T&T's Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

It was felt by Cari­com that the long-stand­ing po­lit­i­cal cri­sis, which has been ex­ac­er­bat­ed by re­cent events, can on­ly be re­solved peace­ful­ly through mean­ing­ful di­a­logue and diplo­ma­cy.

The heads al­so called on ex­ter­nal forces to re­frain from do­ing any­thing to es­ca­late an al­ready ex­plo­sive sit­u­a­tion which could have far-reach­ing neg­a­tive con­se­quences for the wider re­gion.

Weigh­ing in on the is­sue, Knight said Cari­com should have been more proac­tive a long time ago in of­fer­ing its good of­fices to me­di­ate be­tween Maduro and Juan Guai­do who de­clared him­self as pres­i­dent on Wednes­day.

“But the sit­u­a­tion has now gone be­yond sim­ply an in­ter­nal ri­val­ry of two ide­o­log­i­cal­ly op­posed po­lit­i­cal par­ties in Venezuela to a full-blown cri­sis that has be­come a geopo­lit­i­cal is­sue.

“It is the mas­sive suf­fer­ing of the peo­ple in that coun­try and the spillover of the prob­lem in­to the rest of the Caribbean that is con­cern­ing for Cari­com.”

He said he was hap­py to see that the lead­ers have got­ten their act to­geth­er and im­pose a sen­si­ble strat­e­gy to deal with such a grave po­lit­i­cal cri­sis.

While the heads have af­firmed ar­ti­cle 2(7) of the UN Char­ter which calls for non-in­ter­fer­ence in in­ter­nal af­fairs of any coun­try, Knight said, "This is a not too sub­tle aim at the US, Rus­sia and Chi­na and oth­er ex­tra-re­gion­al pow­ers to es­sen­tial­ly butt out of the sit­u­a­tion and not make it worse than it is.”

He said Cari­com's call on coun­tries to re­spect the sov­er­eign­ty of Venezuela "im­plies that Cari­com, while not choos­ing sides, is tact­ful­ly sup­port­ing the right of Maduro to re­main in of­fice un­til this mess is sort­ed out”.

Cari­com not­ed that chair­man of the con­fer­ence Dr Tim­o­thy Har­ris, Prime Min­is­ter of St Kitts and Nevis would seek an ur­gent meet­ing with the Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al to re­quest the UN’s as­sis­tance in re­solv­ing the is­sue.

Knight said it was easy for ex­tra-re­gion­al pow­ers to jump on Guai­do’s band­wag­on.

“But the re­al­i­ty is Maduro is still Pres­i­dent and has com­mand and sup­port of the mil­i­tary and mil­lions of Venezue­lans as well. So Cari­com has done what I think is sen­si­ble.”

He said try­ing to find a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to the con­flict was crit­i­cal.

“It’s easy for coun­tries like the US and Cana­da to of­fer sup­port for Guai­do. But in essence, he is more le­git­i­mate than Maduro as leader of the coun­try. Those ex­tra-re­gion­al pow­ers are on­ly help­ing to desta­bilise Venezuela more and cre­ate a geostrate­gic cri­sis that will have a neg­a­tive im­pact on coun­tries in the Caribbean," Knight said.

Ac­tivist: It's a slap in the face

Venezuela ac­tivist Sofia Figueroa-Leon viewed Cari­com's stance as a slap in the face for Venezue­lans who are suf­fer­ing.

"Their re­sponse has giv­en us no sat­is­fac­tion. It's a slap in the face for Venezue­lans," she said.