The historically ignorant always re-enact it. Thirty-four years after an ideologically divided Caribbean facilitated the violation of the sovereignty of Grenada, the region is poised to replay its past in the case of Venezuela.
At least in Grenada, there was an internal regime crisis resulting in the horrific assignation of sections of the Cabinet. Also, the People’s Revolutionary Government had offended the sensitivities of other Caribbean heads who reduce democracy to regularly held, if not free and fair, elections.
Significantly, none of these negatives obtain in Venezuela. The Chavez-Maduro regimes have faced more elections than any of the present ruling administrations in the Caribbean. The Venezuelan government has also accepted all adverse poll results, inclusive of the most recent occasion, when it lost its legislative majority.
Indeed, it is the opposition led-forces which have ignored the popular will. Despite its parliamentary majority, and with elections due in 2018, the opposition has embarked on a scorched earth campaign of political and economic disruptions, which have seen the assassination of Chavistas, and it has gone as far as discouraging international banks from investing in Venezuela.
It is as if the Barbados Labour Party, one year before an election, had decided to engage in non-stop violent protests to oust the prime minister, and the regional press and politicians were accusing Freundel Stuart of being a dictator.
Given these realities, what then explains the current “indignation†of the some Caribbean governments – Barbados, Bahamas, Guyana, St. Lucia and Jamaica – which led them to support a call within the OAS for a debate on Venezuela, a decision which can legitimatize US-led demands and efforts for regime change.
First, the ambassadors of Barbados and Bahamas, were merely fulfilling their historical roles of doing the bidding of the USA without independent thought. In Guyana’s case, there is little doubt that the border-dispute with Venezuela, would have motivated their decision. St. Lucia can be explained by the intellectual vacuity of its current leadership. Jamaica’s stance is indeed the most troubling, given the open stance taken by a young, conservative leader, playing the Seaga role of foil to Caribbean socialism.
Given the later embarrassment of Caribbean leaders who allowed themselves to be used by imperialism in the case of Grenada, it is instructive that another generation is naively repeating the errors of the past. None of these countries have a legitimate claim to democratic uprightness, and certainly not the JLP still reeling from its actions in Tivoli Gardens.
On this basis, Ralph Gonsalves is certainly correct in asserting that the Caribbean is being allowed to be used by great powers to overturn the legitimate government of Venezuela. If the Caribbean five genuinely wish to make a contribution to stability in Venezuela, they would be calling for all parties to conform to the electoral timetables and to respect the law.
caribflame.com
By Dr. Tennyson S. D. Joseph
