Rowley slams Kamla’s support for US warships in Caribbean

Kejan Haynes

Former Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has broken his silence on Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s surprise weekend announcement that her government supports the presence of United States warships in the Caribbean and would even allow them access to Trinidad and Tobago soil if Venezuela were to attack Guyana.

In a strongly worded Facebook post, Rowley accused Persad-Bissessar of setting aside decades of carefully cultivated regional foreign policy and aligning Port of Spain with Washington’s “Monroe Doctrine” playbook.

“Compare that with what CARICOM did last time the ‘big guns’ — the USA, Canada and Europe — gave [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro eight days to leave and threatened invasion if he did not comply,” Rowley wrote. “Caricom showed leadership.”

He recalled a series of diplomatic interventions in 2019, when Caricom leaders resisted external military threats by advocating dialogue and mediation:

• – Caricom Heads of Government spoke with one voice, rejecting unilateral ultimatums.
• – He, along with Prime Ministers Mia Mottley of Barbados and Timothy Harris of St Kitts and Nevis, was dispatched to New York to meet UN Secretary-General António Guterres, pressing for dialogue instead of war.
• – Caricom spearheaded the Montevideo Accord alongside Mexico and Uruguay, backed by Norway, South Africa and the African Union.
• – In St Vincent, Caricom leaders — under the chairmanship of Ralph Gonsalves — achieved the Arnos Vale Accord, which for the first time brought Maduro and Guyanese President Irfaan Ali face-to-face.

According to Rowley, that period of “aggressive, frenetic Caricom leadership” prevented war and ushered in relative calm until the latest escalation, which he blamed on Washington’s deployment of nuclear submarines, marines and guided missile vessels in Caribbean waters under the banner of counter-narcotics operations.

“With this legacy in the face of the intractable issues surrounding us, Trinidad and Tobago has now set our decades-old successful foreign policy alight as a beacon to advocates of the Monroe Doctrine,” Rowley warned. “Dr Eric Williams, Errol Barrow, [Robert] Bradshaw and E.T. Joshua must be awakening from their slumber to try and save what they built.”

Back in 2019, Rowley had been part of a Caricom team at the Montevideo conference organised by Mexico and Uruguay, aimed at creating a neutral space for dialogue on Venezuela. At the time, however, opposition leader Juan Guaidó rejected the initiative, refusing to negotiate with Maduro.

Still, Rowley and other leaders insisted that Caricom’s mediation efforts kept open a diplomatic path. After his meeting with Guterres, Rowley said the UN had agreed to assist in building a “roadmap towards peace and security for Venezuela and the region.”

That approach, Rowley argued in his Facebook post, stands in stark contrast to Persad-Bissessar’s current embrace of US military presence in the region.

In late January 2019, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley travelled to New York as part of a CARICOM delegation seeking to ease tensions in Venezuela. Alongside CARICOM chairman Dr Timothy Harris, Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley, Secretary-General Irwin LaRocque, and Trinidad and Tobago’s UN Ambassador Pennelope Beckles, Rowley met UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The delegation said the UN was willing to help build a “roadmap towards peace and security for Venezuela and the region” if conditions allowed. Rowley voiced hope for “significant improvement and a diminishing of tensions” in the neighbouring country, stressing dialogue over external intervention.

Days later, following a CARICOM Heads of Government emergency meeting, Rowley, Mottley and Harris were mandated to attend an international conference in Montevideo, Uruguay, convened by Mexico and Uruguay to promote dialogue. The forum was aimed at countries and institutions maintaining neutrality on Venezuela’s political crisis. But even as the meeting was being finalised, opposition leader Juan Guaidó rejected overtures from Mexico and Uruguay to negotiate with Nicolás Maduro, undercutting the initiative.

Rowley also amplified criticism of Persad-Bissessar’s position by sharing a viral Facebook post written by commentator Michael Edmund Dhanny, who described the UNC government’s stance as “the most reckless foreign policy statement we’ve seen in years.” Dhanny argued that the announcement signalled Trinidad and Tobago’s open alignment with Washington at the expense of CARICOM unity, warning that the declaration that “each member state can speak for themselves” effectively dismantled decades of collective diplomacy. He dismissed the government’s link between crime and foreign warships as “lazy politics,” and said the pledge to allow U.S. forces access to Trinidadian soil if Venezuela moved against Guyana amounted to mortgaging the country’s sovereignty without consultation. In his words, Trinidad and Tobago had “swapped regional solidarity for a pat on the head from Washington.”