Renu­ka Singh

T&T will con­tin­ue to "ac­tive­ly par­tic­pate" in meet­ings, de­lib­er­a­tions and vot­ing with the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS).

The coun­try will still ab­stain from any res­o­lu­tion or mo­tion "put for­ward or spon­sored by or on be­half of a pur­port­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Venezuela".

That clar­i­fi­ca­tion came from the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs which stat­ed that T&T re­mains an ac­tive part of the OAS, but will not vote on any Venezue­lan is­sue as Venezuela with­drew from the OAS back in 2017.

At a post-Cab­i­net meet­ing last month, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said T&T will go to OAS meet­ings but will not vote "where the peo­ple who are sit­ting there rep­re­sent­ing coun­tries are not prop­er".

In a text re­sponse to­day on the is­sue, the Prime Min­is­ter said the mis­in­for­ma­tion pre­sent­ed by the me­dia on this is­sue was "an­noy­ing".

"There has been NO CHANGE in our po­si­tion. It is an in­sis­tence by the Gov­ern­ment that the facts be re­peat­ed be­cause you peo­ple in the me­dia keep mis­rep­re­sen­tat­ing those facts ei­ther de­lib­er­ate­ly or in­com­pe­tent­ly," he said.

Row­ley said this lat­est me­dia state­ment sought to cor­rect a mis­lead­ing news­pa­per re­port.

"It is te­dious but we will cor­rect the mis­in­for­ma­tion every time it is pub­lished.

Trinidad and To­ba­go NEV­ER made any de­mand for any Venezue­lan rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Maduro Govt be seat­ed at the OAS," he said.

"That fal­la­cy is mis­in­for­ma­tion pub­lished by me­dia peo­ple," Row­ley said.

"We cor­rect­ed it but they in­sist on re­peat­ing their fool­ish­ness," he said.

Row­ley said that the Gov­ern­ment ob­ject­ed to "any Venezue­lan rep­re­sen­ta­tive be­ing en­ter­tained at OAS meet­ings be­cause Venezuela has with­drawn from the Or­ga­ni­za­tion and is NOT now a mem­ber of the OAS".

"Can’t you all not see a dif­fer­ence?" Row­ley asked.

Rowy said there was no change in Gov­ern­ment po­si­tion on this mat­ter.

"What change?" he asked.

"Imag­ine we ab­stained on a vote on­ly to have it re­port­ed that TT was ab­sent from the meet­ing!! This is be­com­ing an­noy­ing!," he said.