Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne has written to President Donald Trump urging him to ‘follow your instincts’ and continue to pursue ‘dialogue and negotiation’ in de-escalating the tensions with Venezuela.
The state-owned ABS Radio and Television reported Wednesday that Prime Minister Browne had sent the letter to President Trump expressing St. John’s concern over the growing military build-up in international waters shared by Caribbean states.
Browne is calling for renewed diplomatic engagement between Washington and Caracas to prevent escalation in the Caribbean region.
President Trump has ramped up US military presence in the Caribbean Sea ordering an amphibious squadron to the southern Caribbean as part of his effort to address threats from Latin American drug cartels.
A nuclear-powered attack submarine, additional P8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft, several destroyers and a guided-missile cruiser have also being allocated to US Southern Command as part of the mission. In addition, the US largest carrier, the Gerald Forde has joined the build-up
The United States military has been bombing vessels in the international waters claiming that the occupants were drug traffickers without offering any evidence of such activity.
The United Nations UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also strongly condemned the airstrikes carried out by the United States against alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.
Volker Trk said in a statement that the strikes ‘violate international human rights law’, demanding that they be stopped immediately.
Last month, the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat said that regional leaders had discussed several issues on the regional agenda, including the security build-up in parts of the Caribbean and its potential impact on member states.
It said that the position at that meeting was not endorsed by the government of Trinidad and Tobago.
In his letter, Prime Minister Browne reaffirmed the Caribbean’s longstanding commitment to being a Zone of Peace, noting that the region has earned its reputation as one of the few places in the world where calm and stability still offer respite in an increasingly turbulent international environment.
He wrote that the economies of Caribbean small states, particularly tourism-dependent nations, are highly vulnerable to geopolitical tensions.
‘A hint of armed confrontation in our waters reverberates instantly through hotel bookings, airlines, foreign investment, and the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of families,’ Prime Minister Browne wrote, warning that military action near Caribbean shores could cast ‘a long shadow’ over an industry central to regional development and economic security.
Prime Minister Browne is urging Trump to ‘follow your instincts which, as far as I have seen, are rooted in dialogue and negotiation,’ noting that the Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, has signalled willingness to engage in direct discussions.
Browne said diplomacy, though sometimes slow and imperfect, ‘delivers fewer sorrows than the alternatives’.
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s opposition politician and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, María Corina Machado, has issued a ‘Freedom Manifesto’ in which she envisions a democratic rebirth after the collapse of Maduro’s rule.
‘We stand at the edge of a new era – one where our natural rights will prevail,’ Machado wrote, adding that the South American country with a revitalized energy sector, a diversified high-tech economy, demilitarized institutions will have a reinvigorated place in the ‘international community of democracies’.