Bharrat’s peace of mind

Oct 04, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – It must be said that Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has the rare ability to make geopolitics sound like Sunday-school classes. Asked about U.S. military strikes in the open seas of the Caribbean—strikes which some observers suggest resemble a policy of extermination rather than interdiction—Jagdeo assured the nation with the confidence of a man reciting a nursery rhyme that this was a matter between the United States and Venezuela.

That’s it. End of story. The matter of foreign warships prowling Caribbean waters and firing at targets is not, apparently, a concern for the concept of the Zone of Peace, or for anyone who has the faintest recollection of the Havana Declaration of 2014. No, for Jagdeo it is a simple two-party contract, like a neighborhood arrangement to borrow a lawnmower.

One almost admires the simplicity. Why clutter the public’s brain with complicated matters like the Treaty of Tlatelolco, the solemn declarations of CELAC, or the very concept of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace? Why, indeed, invoke the point that this region, by its own collective agreement, has pledged itself to the peaceful settlement of disputes, the prohibition of military aggression, and the reduction of external bases?

Jagdeo’s approach saves time. It reduces centuries of diplomacy, decades of regional effort, and the combined hopes of Latin America and Caribbean states into a shrug of the shoulders. After all, what harm could a U.S. flotilla bristling with missiles and drones be doing in the Caribbean Sea? Perhaps they are only here to sightsee, to sample the rum and the calypso.

Let us remind the Vice President, who is fond of presenting himself as an expert on all things global, that when CELAC in 2014 proclaimed this region a Zone of Peace, it was not engaging in idle chatter. It was affirming the region’s rejection of war as an instrument of policy, its determination to solve disputes peacefully, and its refusal to be drawn into the conflicts of extra-regional powers. The declaration was a shield. It was a moral and political barrier against precisely the kind of military activity that Jagdeo so casually dismissed.

When he says that the strikes are a matter for the U.S. and Venezuela, one has to question that why should this not be of concern to the Caribbean. Both Ralph Gonsalves and Mia Mottley have spoken out on this matter at the United Nation. If this aggression by the United States is not of concern to Guyana, then why should we expect others to be concerned by Venezuela’s threats to Guyana?

Is Jagdeo so naïve that he does not understand the implications of the nonsense he spouts?  Or is the region being reinvented in Jagdeo’s imagination, where U.S. aircraft carriers may patrol without question?

If Jagdeo had even a modest grasp of the Zone of Peace concept, he would understand that it is not simply a pretty phrase for diplomats to toast with champagne. It is a commitment to keep the region free from military escalation, free from nuclear weapons, free from becoming the battlefield of external rivalries. He would know that the presence of a U.S. flotilla conducting live strikes is not consistent with this principle but a direct violation of it.

In my opinion, the Vice President’s comments render him incapable of asking whether these so-called “interdictions” are, in fact, lawful under international law, or whether they amount to acts of aggression in the disguise of security operations. One cannot parody Jagdeo because he parodies himself.

The Zone of Peace is meant to safeguard small states from being trampled in the games of the mighty. It is meant to preserve our waters from becoming a theatre of war. For Jagdeo to shrug at this is to abandon the very protections our region has so painstakingly crafted.

The irony is rich. Here is a man who spent years insisting on Guyana’s sovereignty now trivializing the broader sovereignty of the entire Caribbean Basin. Here is a leader who lectures about the sanctity of contract when oil revenues are at stake, now averting his eyes when missiles streak across the skies of our region.

In truth, Jagdeo’s comments are disturbing to say the least. A leader who cannot distinguish between a Zone of Peace and a U.S. war zone should remain silent. If the Vice President had a better understanding of what CELAC, CARICOM, UNASUR, and the OAS have declared, he would know that peace is not a private arrangement between Washington and Caracas.

But to acknowledge that would require courage—courage to tell the U.S. that while cooperation is welcome, militarization is not; courage to tell the Guyanese people that their leaders will uphold the Zone of Peace regardless of the fact that Venezuela may be an intended victim of aggression. Such courage was not on display last Thursday. Instead, we were treated to a recital of naiveté masquerading as statesmanship.

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

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• Bharrat Jagdeo, peace of mind, U.S. military strikes, United States Venezuela

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