Editorial | A CARICOM crisis?

Perhaps it is the distraction of the campaign for next week’s parliamentary elections that has caused Jamaicans, and their government, to be seemingly oblivious to geo-political developments in the southern Caribbean that could upend the region’s stability.

We refer to last week’s dispatch by the United States of a flotilla of warships, including a submarine, to the area, ostensibly to confront drug smugglers, but which many people fear could be the precursor of military action to remove Nicolás Maduro’s government in Venezuela.

While a handful of regional leaders, most notably Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, gave the deployment full-throated support, the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM), as a group, has been silent on the matter. Jamaica currently holds CARICOM’s rotating six-month chairmanship, but the island’s prime minister, Andrew Holness, is engaged in a bruising fight to retain his job, the vote for which takes place next Wednesday.

But, for exceptional cases, usually when they go beyond bilateral or international agreements, or are accused of mistreating regional citizens, the presence of US ships – mostly Coast Guard vessels – in the Caribbean Sea intercepting drug smugglers is considered routine. Indeed, most Caribbean states have so-called shiprider agreements with the United States, allowing US vessels to chase boats suspected of transporting drugs into their territorial waters.

The latest development, though, is in its scope and the apparent context of a different order of magnitude. Which has raised questions about the real intention of Donald Trump’s administration.

In February, President Trump designated several Mexican drug gangs, including Sinaloa Cartel, as well as the Venezuelan criminal group Tren de Aragua, as international terrorist organisations. He signed executive orders opening the way for the military to move against them.

EXTRAORDINARY DISPLAY OF FORCE

But, even for confronting violent cartels, especially at sea, the amphibious squadron, reported to include at least three destroyers with guided missile capabilities, is considered by many an extraordinary display of force.

Further, the area of the deployment, near Venezuela, comes as the United States ratchets up pressure on President Maduro, the legitimacy of whose re-election last year Washington disputes.

After he returned to the White House in January, President Trump reimposed or tightened sanctions on Venezuela that were eased during Joe Biden’s presidency. This month, the Americans doubled, to US$50 million, the bounty on President Maduro for supposedly conspiring with narcotics gangs to use Venezuela as a safe haven from which to flood the US with narcotics.

A deepening presumption, therefore, is that America’s next step could be military action against Maduro, including forcibly taking him to the United States for trial.

This potential development is cause for deep concern. However, Mr Maduro’s complicated relationship with CARICOM and region’s wariness of Mr Trump’s disregard for global norms, offer part of the explanation of why the response of the mostly small island states in the region to the deployment has been largely muted, notwithstanding the CARICOM’S commitment to maintaining the Caribbean as a zone of peace.

While most CARICOM countries have maintained good relations with Venezuela, the community has historically backed member-state Guyana in its territorial dispute with Caracas.

Jamaica, under Prime Minister Holness, however, is one of the regional countries whose relationship has been overtly sour. When Mr Maduro was sworn-in for his second term in 2019, Jamaica was among the countries that didn’t recognise his legitimacy, although it stopped short of formally endorsing Juan Guaidó, the head of the national assembly who, with US backing, had declared himself interim president.

ISN’T CLEAR

How Jamaica and Mr Holness, as chairman of CARICOM, have responded to the current situation isn’t clear. Indeed, there is no sign that Jamaica is even interested in the matter.

Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela’s next-door neighbour, has gone through a 180-degree shift in its relationship with Caracas since Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar’s United National Congress (UNC) came to office earlier this year and pulled the plug on a natural gas development project between the two countries.

Ms Persad-Bissessar has claimed that only people who had concerns with the US deployment were supporters of the drug cartels, and that Trinidad and Tobago had no interest in consulting with CARICOM on the issue. She had previously declared her willingness to allow the United States to use her country as a staging ground for any action against Venezuela, should Mr Maduro attack Guyana over the border dispute.

Not surprisingly, in Guyana, which holds a general election on Monday, the government of President Irfaan Ali declared its commitment “to working with our bilateral partners to find meaningful solutions and will support regional and global initiatives aimed at dismantling criminal networks to safeguard our shared security”. At the same time, Guyana reaffirmed its support of the Caribbean as a zone of peace.

It is obvious that this is a potentially very testing situation for CARICOM, which, if it comes to the worst, will require astute leadership if the community is to hold itself together. Whoever is Jamaica’s prime minister after Wednesday has another difficult task on his agenda.