The President must choose his team carefully

Dec 12, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The President of Guyana is going into a lion’s lair on Thursday. He has agreed to meet face-to-face with the President of Venezuela as part of a Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and Caribbean Community (CARICOM) initiative aimed at deescalating present tensions.

The President has accepted the invitation to meet – as he must. Guyana cannot claim that it is interested in peace and at the same time refuse to accept an invitation to a conversation with the President of Venezuela aimed at deescalating tensions. The President of Guyana therefore had little choice. Once the invitation was made, he had to accept even though there are scores of Guyanese who may feel that there is nothing for him to say to Maduro, and do not support such a meeting.

The President has been receiving much advice – all good – from various sources. Some of the advice has been unsolicited. The President of Guyana needs all the advice that he can get. He is going into a discussion with persons who are craftier and more experienced than he is, and he will not have it easy.

President Irfaan Ali is still inexperienced as a president. His presidency is less than four years old. As he would have no doubt found out, the Presidency is a major step-up from being a Minister, especially when it comes to international affairs.  He is also dealing with a leader in Maduro who is much more experienced and shrewder than he is. President Ali will therefore need all the help that he can get. But he should stay clear of including in his delegation any person who has contributed to inflaming tensions between Guyana and Venezuela of recent.  It would be a magnanimous gesture if he invites the Leader of the Opposition on his delegation.

The international community has been insisting on the need for both sides to not inflame tensions.  On the 10th November, the Office of the UN Secretary General issued a statement on the ongoing issue between Guyana and Venezuela. In that statement the UN Secretary General was said to have urged that “both parties will demonstrate good faith and avoid any action that would aggravate or extend the controversy.” Soon after the announcement of the holding of a consultative referendum in Venezuela, the Barbadian Prime Minister had made a similar plea. She called on both Guyana and Venezuela to not do anything that would affect the Region as a zone of peace. She has said, “I hope that the rhetoric and noise between Venezuela and Guyana does not turn our Caribbean into anything that is not a zone of peace. Because it matters to us that this Caribbean remains a zone of peace and we ask those parties to recognize that their actions go beyond their two countries.”

Brazil’s call for dialogue and its offer to mediate the dispute to keep the region as a zone of peace is based on similar sentiments. Brazil does not want an escalation in tensions that could lead to a breach of the peace.  In its ruling of 1st December, the International Court of Justice urged that neither Guyana or Venezuela do anything which could escalate the situation. Unfortunately, while President Ali has been restrained in his comments on Venezuela, another member of his government has been less constrained and has continued to launch his verbal broadsides against personalities in Venezuela. This cannot be helpful or even in compliance with the ICJ ruling. The President therefore should therefore carefully choose his delegation and those who will be part of the face-to- face meeting with the Venezuelan President. Persons who have been of recent attacking the government of Venezuela and its governing personalities should not be part of the Guyana delegation, no matter how senior they are within the Ali government. Also, as a former Commonwealth Secretary General noted, Guyana must temper expectations about the outcome of this meeting. The President has already said that the issue of the border is off the agenda. As such the meeting is not expected to result in any breakthrough on the issue of dispute. People need to appreciate this fact.

The main objective of the meeting in St, Vincent appears to be the cooling of tensions. One possible outcome of the meeting could therefore be a reiteration of the need for both sides to constrain their rhetoric on this issue.  This is an issue which both sides can easily be in agreement with. It will be a lot more difficult to ask the Venezuelans to reverse some of its recent actions in relation to the creation of a new state incorporating the Essequibo. But the negotiators, not Guyana, may consider asking the Venezuelans to freeze any such plans.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Guyana, President, Venezuela

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