Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go Al­varo Sanchez Cordero is con­fi­dent that any move against Venezuela by the Unit­ed States will fail, just as pre­vi­ous at­tempts have over the decades.

With a US naval mis­sion—in­clud­ing war­ships, a nu­clear-pow­ered sub­ma­rine, and 4,500 troops —en route to Caribbean wa­ters for an an­ti-drug car­tel op­er­a­tion, Cordero re­mind­ed Wash­ing­ton of Venezue­lan Lib­er­a­tor Si­mon Bo­li­var’s fa­mous 1818 words: “Free peo­ple de­feat pow­er­ful em­pires.”

Asked about Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s view that there is no ev­i­dence the US clam­p­down on nar­co-ter­ror­ists is a façade to de­pose Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro, Cordero replied: “I am not re­spond­ing to that.”

Speak­ing af­ter a bi­lat­er­al meet­ing with Grena­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre on Fri­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar reaf­firmed her sup­port for the US mil­i­tary pres­ence. How­ev­er, she said if her gov­ern­ment is pre­sent­ed with ev­i­dence of a threat to Maduro, it would re­con­sid­er its po­si­tion.

In re­marks at a wreath-lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny yes­ter­day at the bust of Bo­li­var on Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do, Cordero stressed that Venezuela would con­tin­ue to de­fend the Caribbean as a “zone of peace,” as de­clared more than a decade ago by the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Cu­ba.

De­spite neg­a­tive per­cep­tions abroad, he said Venezuela is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing po­lit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty, eco­nom­ic growth, and cit­i­zen sat­is­fac­tion.

Dis­miss­ing Wash­ing­ton’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for its naval de­ploy­ment as “ab­solute­ly lame,” Cordero said in­ter­na­tion­al re­ports con­tra­dict the US claim. He not­ed that every re­port by the US Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion (DEA) since 2000 has nev­er cit­ed Venezuela, while a Unit­ed Na­tions Of­fice on Drugs and Crime re­port found that more than 80 per cent of drug ship­ments from Colom­bia to the US pass through the Pa­cif­ic Ocean.

“These im­por­tant find­ings con­tra­dict the for­eign pol­i­cy of the cur­rent US ad­min­is­tra­tion in mo­bil­is­ing mil­i­tary as­sets in the re­gion while threat­en­ing specif­i­cal­ly Venezuela,” he said.

The am­bas­sador al­so point­ed to the Tlatelol­co Treaty, which pro­hibits nu­clear weapons in the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca, and re­called sev­er­al un­suc­cess­ful US at­tempts over the past 25 years to in­ter­fere in Venezue­lan af­fairs.

“Peo­ple across the world are gath­er­ing in sup­port of Venezuela against this im­pe­r­i­al threat, which is bound to fail, just as all pre­vi­ous episodes over the past 25–26 years have failed,” he added.

Cordero de­clined com­ment on Cari­com’s si­lence re­gard­ing the US naval de­ploy­ment.

The US has so far de­ployed three naval ves­sels — USS San An­to­nio, USS Iwo Ji­ma, and USS Fort Laud­erdale—to the Caribbean, with re­ports that two more, the USS Lake Erie and USS New­port News, will ar­rive ear­ly next week.

Among those at­tend­ing yes­ter­day’s cer­e­mo­ny were Cuban Em­bassy rep­re­sen­ta­tive Julio Caba­da, who de­clined com­ment, Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh, and Raould Kei­th Si­mon, shaman of the Warao com­mu­ni­ty in San Fer­nan­do.