Source: Trinidad Daily Express
So said St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves yesterday, as he reviewed the United States’ policy toward Venezuela and the restrictions imposed on countries like Trinidad and Tobago and other members of Caricom, in respect of doing business with that country.
Asked how invested Caricom was in getting the United States to relax its sanctions against Venezuela, Gonsalves said Caricom, which has not been able to access PetroCaribe, had been pressing the US government on this issue. “You have to understand this. No matter what the US government tells you about Venezuela and democracy and human rights, I don’t take those things at face value. US policy on Venezuela, on Cuba and on Nicaragua, they are prisoners of the presidential, gubernatorial, senatorial and congressional politics of South Florida.
“Because of the strength of the Latin vote and particularly the significant number of people against the Cuban revolution, against the changes taking place in Venezuela, in Nicaragua, the US politicians need the vote because Florida is an important state and South Florida is critical in determining the presidential election and of gubernatorial, senatorial and congressional (elections).”
Gonsalves was speaking to reporters at the 45th Regular Meeting of Caricom Heads at the Hyatt Regency (Trinidad) hotel in Port of Spain. “I can’t allow the foreign policy of St Vincent and the Grenadines to be imprisoned by American domestic politics. And when they tell me that the struggle in the world is between democracies and autocracies, do you buy that? The struggle in the world is for resources and who controls them and how those resources are distributed.
“You think they were concerned about (democracy) in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya? Do you think they are concerned about that in India, that they are concerned about that in China? You didn’t just see the Secretary of State go there, followed by the Secretary of the Treasury? Is about $700 billion in trade between the US and China. So, please. I have an understanding of history and I have an understanding of contemporary reality. They might fool a lot of people, but they ain’t fooling this man,” he said.
We have excellent relations with the US
Gonsalves said: “You want to tell me in the case of Venezuela, as soon as there was a problem in Ukraine and the pipeline from Russia (was cut), the United States gave a ‘Bligh’ to the Europeans to go and deal with Venezuela in relation to oil. They gave permission to Chevron to talk to Venezuela about exploiting resources and paying Venezuela in US dollars. But yet you don’t want Venezuela to do it with PetroCaribe? Eh?
“And that you still saying Trinidad can go and do a (Dragon gas) deal with Venezuela, but we not so sure if you could pay them in US dollars. And you talking to me (and saying) that the struggle is between autocracy and democracy? Eh? Naked self-interest. And I, part of my job as the leader of a small independent country is to point out these kinds of inconsistencies and positions which affect us negatively.”
He said: “Why you think (then-US president Barack) Obama in his second term, toward the end opened relations with Cuba? Because he just saw the light? (No). Because he didn’t have an election (to face) after that. Now don’t get me wrong, St Vincent and the Grenadines has excellent relations with the United States of America. I can’t lift up St Vincent and the Grenadines and carry them to Vladivostok or the mouth of the Amo River. The largest St Vincentian city in the world is Brooklyn.
“The tourists come from there, remittances come from them, all the cultural influences, good and bad come from there. But that doesn’t mean I must roll over and play dead. I have to accommodate myself to certain realities and at particular points I resist creatively.
“Who did the Americans go and talk to in Venezuela… about Chevron? To Guaido or Maduro?… Guaido controlling any oil field?”
Asked whether this would be the position when Caricom speaks with the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who comes in today, Gonsalves said Caricom had spoken with the US administration already.
He said: “The question is this: does reason always persuade power to act, as far as they are concerned, contrary to their own interest?”
Gonsalves said anytime he hears anyone from the East or the West talking about a new world order, he asks “what’s new, which world and who gives the orders? St Vincent and the Grenadines is a democracy”.
No ‘for sale sign’ on the country’s foreign ministry
Gonsalves also defended his country’s decision to have relations with Taiwan.
“St Vincent and the Grenadines supports one Chinese civilisation policy… You can have a civilisation in different states. There is one Chinese civilisation… St Vincent and the Grenadines has diplomatic relations with the Republic of China and Taiwan… The dispute issues they have is the dispute between two political expressions of the Chinese civilisation.
“And all I am interested in is peace across the Taiwan straits. I don’t set conditions for our relationship with the People’s Republic of China. They say that St Vincent and the Grenadines, for example, can’t have relations with them so long as you have relations with Taiwan. If tomorrow they drop that precondition, we will have relations with them…
“We work with them at the UN when we are at the Security Council, in the CDB, in the World Health Organisation, and we work very well. I am not getting involved in internal affairs… They will resolve it without my help or anybody else’s help.
“The Chinese civilisation is 6,000 years old. The fracture in the civilisation politically is since 1949,” he said.
Asked whether he would consider switching to China, Gonsalves said St Vincent and the Grenadines did not have in its Ministry of Foreign Affairs “a for sale sign”.
West Indies cricketers would have been voted out
On the issue of the West Indies cricket team, Gonsalves said he did not understand how the region had reached this low with the West Indies cricket team “with persons who have the ability, but they don’t have commitment.
“And let me make this point again—if some of those guys who playing West Indies cricket were parliamentary representatives, the people would have done vote them out for lack of performance. They would have thrown them out of office.”