Mick­ela Pan­day

“I love her.”

Those were the words that caught my at­ten­tion this week when Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she hoped to meet Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly lat­er this month.

I must ad­mit, I had to read that twice.

Not be­cause I ob­ject to re­pair­ing re­la­tions with Venezuela. I don’t. In fact, I be­lieve Trinidad and To­ba­go should have a ma­ture, con­struc­tive re­la­tion­ship with our clos­est neigh­bour.

But “I love her”? That is quite a turn­around.

On­ly last year, re­la­tions be­tween Port-of-Spain and Cara­cas had de­te­ri­o­rat­ed bad­ly. Venezuela de­clared the Prime Min­is­ter per­sona non gra­ta, and Ro­dríguez her­self had pub­licly at­tacked her. The Prime Min­is­ter, in turn, ac­cused Venezuela of bul­ly­ing small­er neigh­bours.

To­day, we have “I love her” and a hoped-for meet­ing in New York. Was it tongue-in-cheek? An at­tempt to break the ice? Po­lit­i­cal the­atre? Or was it a gen­uine olive branch? On­ly the Prime Min­is­ter knows.

In­ter­na­tion­al pol­i­tics does not fol­low the same rule­book as do­mes­tic pol­i­tics. Yes­ter­day is yes­ter­day. To­day is to­day. Coun­tries change po­si­tions, Gov­ern­ments change course and yes­ter­day’s ad­ver­sary can be­come to­mor­row’s part­ner.

There is noth­ing wrong with that. But there is a dif­fer­ence be­tween ex­tend­ing an olive branch and pre­tend­ing the branch­es were nev­er bro­ken.

If this is a gen­uine olive branch, of­fered in the name of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go whom the Prime Min­is­ter serves, then it must come with a mea­sure of hu­mil­i­ty and sin­cer­i­ty. So far, the de­c­la­ra­tion of love has been heard in Port-of-Spain, not Cara­cas. Per­haps that means noth­ing. Per­haps it means every­thing.

And then there is the ge­og­ra­phy.

Venezuela is just sev­en miles from Trinidad and To­ba­go. Sev­en miles. Yet the Prime Min­is­ter is hop­ing to meet Ro­dríguez in New York, on the side­lines of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly. Sev­en miles can be a very long dis­tance when pol­i­tics gets in the way.

Of course, Ro­dríguez has al­ready met oth­er Caribbean lead­ers. She met Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley in Bridgetown in April and Mot­t­ley trav­elled to Cara­cas in Au­gust, where they signed a joint de­c­la­ra­tion to strength­en co­op­er­a­tion. Ro­dríguez al­so vis­it­ed Grena­da and met Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell.

Still, I wel­come the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a meet­ing be­tween the lead­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela.

But that meet­ing must be about more than a pho­to­graph, a hand­shake or a de­c­la­ra­tion of af­fec­tion.

Venezuela is not sim­ply a coun­try from which we hope to ob­tain gas. It is our clos­est neigh­bour, a coun­try with which we share a mar­itime bound­ary and a re­la­tion­ship that af­fects en­er­gy, trade, se­cu­ri­ty, mi­gra­tion and the wider Caribbean.

The Prime Min­is­ter has said Venezue­lan gas could reach Trinidad and To­ba­go with­in the next year, and agree­ments have al­ready been reached in­volv­ing BP, with fur­ther in­ter­est from oth­er en­er­gy com­pa­nies. That is sig­nif­i­cant.

But it al­so means we should be ask­ing more ques­tions, not few­er. What ex­act­ly are we agree­ing to? What does Trinidad and To­ba­go re­ceive? What com­mit­ments are we mak­ing? What pro­tec­tions are in place? And im­por­tant­ly, how re­silient are these arrange­ments if Venezuela’s po­lit­i­cal cir­cum­stances change again?

These are not hos­tile ques­tions. They are re­spon­si­ble ques­tions.

That is the con­ver­sa­tion I want us to have. Not whether the Prime Min­is­ter should meet Del­cy Ro­dríguez. Of course she should. Neigh­bours should talk, es­pe­cial­ly when there are dis­agree­ments. The ques­tion is what comes af­ter the meet­ing and whether there is a strat­e­gy be­hind the smile.

We should be able to en­gage Venezuela with­out be­ing naïve about Venezuela, just as we should be able to en­gage any coun­try with­out al­low­ing friend­ship to re­place judge­ment. That is what ma­ture diplo­ma­cy looks like.

Be­cause diplo­ma­cy is not about whether you like an­oth­er coun­try’s leader. It is about un­der­stand­ing that coun­try, un­der­stand­ing your own in­ter­ests, know­ing where those in­ter­ests meet and where they do not and be­ing able to shake hands with­out sur­ren­der­ing your prin­ci­ples.

Our for­eign pol­i­cy can­not be built around per­son­al­i­ties. Gov­ern­ments change. Pres­i­dents change. Al­liances change. Na­tion­al in­ter­ests en­dure. So what ex­act­ly is the re­la­tion­ship Trinidad and To­ba­go wants with Venezuela?

What does our Gov­ern­ment want to achieve? What does Venezuela want from us? What are we pre­pared to ne­go­ti­ate, and what are we not pre­pared to com­pro­mise? Those ques­tions mat­ter be­cause rec­on­cil­i­a­tion should be sub­stan­tive.

Meet. Talk. Build the re­la­tion­ship. But build it on mu­tu­al re­spect, clear in­ter­ests and a prop­er un­der­stand­ing of what each coun­try wants from the oth­er.

If the Prime Min­is­ter gen­uine­ly wants to turn the page, then turn it. But let us not con­fuse warmth with strat­e­gy. A pho­to­graph at the Unit­ed Na­tions is not diplo­ma­cy. A warm hand­shake is not diplo­ma­cy. And telling us that you love some­one is cer­tain­ly not a for­eign pol­i­cy.

So, Prime Min­is­ter, if you love Del­cy, that is your busi­ness.

But when you meet her in New York, I hope you go there not sim­ply with an open heart, but with a clear head. Be­cause when the cam­eras are gone, the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go are still here. And they de­serve to know: what is this love worth to them?

Mick­ela Pan­day is the Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and At­tor­ney at Law