Dear Editor,
The warm meeting between Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly raises some serious questions for Guyana and, indeed, for the wider Caribbean.
The two leaders met in New York on September 23 and described their encounter as the beginning of a “new era” in bilateral relations. Venezuela subsequently declared Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar persona grata, reversing the persona non grata designation imposed on her in 2025. The two governments also agreed to deepen cooperation in areas including energy, trade, security and other matters.
Diplomatic engagement between neighbouring states is, of course, nothing unusual. Trinidad and Tobago has every right to pursue its national interests and maintain relations with Venezuela. But the timing and circumstances of this particular embrace deserve closer scrutiny.
While Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar was meeting warmly with President Rodríguez, Rodríguez was simultaneously using the floor of the United Nations General Assembly to reaffirm Venezuela’s claim to Guyana’s Essequibo and to call on Guyana to return to bilateral negotiations under the Geneva Agreement.
More troubling still, Rodríguez appeared at the UN wearing a brooch depicting Essequibo as part of Venezuela. This was not merely a fashion statement. It was a political symbol attached to a territorial claim involving two-thirds of Guyana’s landmass. Venezuelan officials have used similar imagery previously, prompting President Irfaan Ali to raise the matter with CARICOM.
This creates an uncomfortable question: What message does this send to Guyana?
CARICOM has repeatedly affirmed its support for Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and has specifically cautioned that regional engagements should not be used to advance or appear to legitimise Venezuela’s claim while the matter remains before the International Court of Justice.
Against that background, should Guyanese regard the highly publicised warmth between Port of Spain and Caracas, and Venezuela’s decision to confer persona grata status on the Trinidadian Prime Minister, as simply normal diplomacy? Or does the optics of the meeting, occurring at the very moment Venezuela was publicly reaffirming its claim to Essequibo, raise legitimate concerns about regional solidarity?
There is an important distinction between maintaining diplomatic relations with Venezuela and appearing indifferent to the manner in which Venezuela continues to assert its territorial claim against a fellow CARICOM member.
Guyana should not expect its Caribbean neighbours to sever relations with Venezuela. Nor should it object to legitimate cooperation on energy, trade, security or other matters. But Guyana can reasonably expect that such engagement will not come at the expense of its sovereignty or create the impression that Venezuela’s claim is being tolerated, normalised or quietly accommodated.
The question, therefore, is not whether Trinidad and Tobago has the sovereign right to engage Venezuela. It clearly does.
The question is whether Caribbean diplomacy can embrace Venezuela while simultaneously defending the principle that CARICOM will not tolerate the legitimisation of Venezuela’s claim to Guyana’s Essequibo.
For Guyana, this is more than a diplomatic photo opportunity. It is a test of what Caribbean solidarity means when one CARICOM member is engaged in a longstanding territorial controversy with a powerful neighbour.
Was the embrace in New York simply diplomacy or, given the circumstances, did it amount to a slap in the face to Guyana?
That is a question Guyanese, and the wider Caribbean, deserve to debate.
Sincerely,
Keith Bernard
Discussion