KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young has wel­comed the cor­dial diplo­mat­ic ex­changes be­tween T&T and Venezuela fol­low­ing last month’s earth­quakes, while cau­tion­ing that “much deep­er is­sues” be­tween the two coun­tries re­main un­re­solved.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Young said the dev­as­ta­tion caused by the earth­quakes, which re­sult­ed in sig­nif­i­cant loss of life, dis­place­ment and de­struc­tion, re­quired a hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­sponse rather than po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sion.

De­scrib­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela as “sim­ply aw­ful and sad,” Young said T&T had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to as­sist its clos­est neigh­bour.

“I am pleased, as a cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go, that we reached out and pro­vid­ed much-need­ed as­sis­tance; it would have been un­ac­cept­able oth­er­wise.”

Young al­so wel­comed the com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Act­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez, de­scrib­ing the ex­change as an ap­pro­pri­ate diplo­mat­ic re­sponse fol­low­ing the dis­as­ter.

“I am al­so pleased that there has been an ex­pect­ed cor­dial ex­change of very diplo­mat­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the lead­ers of the two coun­tries.”

How­ev­er, Young was care­ful not to sug­gest that the re­cent en­gage­ment rep­re­sent­ed a res­o­lu­tion of the broad­er chal­lenges that have shaped re­la­tions be­tween Port-of-Spain and Cara­cas.

He said hu­man­i­tar­i­an crises should not be­come plat­forms for po­lit­i­cal con­fronta­tion.

“I do not be­lieve that at a time of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, which have re­sult­ed in loss of lives, de­struc­tion and dif­fi­cul­ty, pol­i­tics, and in par­tic­u­lar, neg­a­tive pol­i­tics should be present.”

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the ges­tures be­tween the two gov­ern­ments, Young said they should be viewed with­in the con­text in which they oc­curred.

“I see the ges­tures, ac­tions and ex­change of diplo­mat­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tions for what they are and I will leave it at that for now. There are much deep­er is­sues that will ob­vi­ous­ly have to be ad­dressed. I con­tin­ue to main­tain many con­cerns, but as I said, that is for an­oth­er time.”

His com­ments come as cor­dial com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween T&T and Venezuela re­sumed af­ter a pe­ri­od of strained re­la­tions be­tween the two neigh­bours. Fol­low­ing the earth­quakes, Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke with Ro­dríguez, ex­press­ing con­do­lences and sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Venezue­lan peo­ple. T&T pro­vid­ed hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance, in­clud­ing more than 230 tonnes of sup­plies, while the two lead­ers ex­changed let­ters sig­nalling a will­ing­ness to main­tain di­a­logue and co­op­er­a­tion.

The re­newed en­gage­ment fol­lows months of ten­sion be­tween Port-of-Spain and Cara­cas. Af­ter re­turn­ing to of­fice, Per­sad-Bisses­sar pub­licly sup­port­ed the Unit­ed States’ ap­proach to­wards Cara­cas. That stance con­tributed to a cool­ing of re­la­tions be­tween the two gov­ern­ments.

Young was one of T&T’s main in­ter­locu­tors with Venezuela dur­ing the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion. As en­er­gy min­is­ter and lat­er prime min­is­ter, Young held re­peat­ed dis­cus­sions with Ro­dríguez on cross-bor­der en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions sur­round­ing the Drag­on gas project.

Those en­gage­ments placed Young at the cen­tre of ef­forts to main­tain com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Cara­cas as T&T sought ac­cess to Venezue­lan nat­ur­al gas amid the chal­lenges cre­at­ed by in­ter­na­tion­al sanc­tions.

Econ­o­mist Ronald Ramkissoon said the re­newed com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the gov­ern­ments could cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for fur­ther dis­cus­sions on cross-bor­der en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly as T&T con­tin­ues to ad­dress con­cerns about fu­ture gas sup­plies.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Shane Mo­hammed de­scribed the re­newed en­gage­ment as a po­ten­tial step to­wards re­build­ing trust be­tween the two coun­tries, al­though he not­ed that sus­tained di­a­logue would be nec­es­sary be­fore deep­er co­op­er­a­tion could be re­stored.

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Mar­i­ano Browne said com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween neigh­bour­ing states re­mains im­por­tant, ar­gu­ing that hu­man­i­tar­i­an en­gage­ment can pro­vide an open­ing for broad­er diplo­mat­ic dis­cus­sions.

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les al­so viewed the ex­changes as a pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment. How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that im­proved re­la­tions would de­pend on how both gov­ern­ments ad­dress more com­plex is­sues be­yond the im­me­di­ate hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­sponse.