IRA MATH­UR

Gen­nike May­ers, a T&T na­tion­al ad­vo­cate for Caribbean uni­ty, re­leased her new book, “CARI­COM: Good Of­fices, Good Neigh­bours.” The book ex­am­ines the di­verse diplo­mat­ic ap­proach­es of Cari­com mem­ber states to­wards the Venezue­lan cri­sis and high­lights the cru­cial im­por­tance of re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty in nav­i­gat­ing com­plex geopo­lit­i­cal chal­lenges.

The chal­lenges’ jour­ney re­flects her ded­i­ca­tion to bridg­ing cul­tures and fos­ter­ing re­gion­al un­der­stand­ing.

She has a bach­e­lor’s de­gree in French and a post­grad­u­ate diplo­ma in in­ter­pret­ing from UWI, fur­ther­ing her stud­ies in Mar­tinique and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic. She al­so holds a Mas­ters in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion from UVSQ in France, fo­cus­ing on Caribbean lin­guis­tic and cul­tur­al nu­ances, and has used her mul­ti­lin­gual skills in in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance across di­verse glob­al lo­ca­tions.

The in­spi­ra­tion for “CARI­COM: Good Of­fices, Good Neigh­bour” emerged dur­ing her time with the Red Cross in Bangladesh in 2018. Wit­ness­ing the world’s largest refugee re­sponse op­er­a­tion, she was moved by the si­mul­ta­ne­ous cri­sis in Venezuela, where thou­sands sought refuge in T&T. This ex­pe­ri­ence ig­nit­ed her de­sire to ex­plore Cari­com’s diplo­mat­ic re­spons­es and share her find­ings glob­al­ly.

Her book, de­rived from her Mas­ter’s dis­ser­ta­tion in diplo­ma­cy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mal­ta, analy­ses the fac­tors shap­ing Cari­com mem­ber states’ stances on the Venezue­lan cri­sis. Her re­search re­veals that de­spite its small pop­u­la­tion, Cari­com wields sig­nif­i­cant in­flu­ence as a vot­ing bloc in re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al fo­rums.

How­ev­er, mem­ber states are di­vid­ed re­gard­ing their diplo­mat­ic po­si­tions. Some have strength­ened Cari­com’s stance, while oth­ers have aligned with ex­ter­nal pow­ers, pri­ori­tis­ing bi­lat­er­al trade and po­lit­i­cal ties over re­gion­al uni­ty. The book un­der­scores the need for a unit­ed Cari­com to bol­ster its role as a me­di­a­tor, of­fer­ing good of­fices in Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion lead­ers.

Sev­er­al Caribbean coun­tries have im­posed visa re­stric­tions on Venezue­lans, lim­it­ing ac­cess and in­creas­ing pro­tec­tion risks for those seek­ing en­try by sea. May­ers high­lights the po­si­tion of Ed­uar­do Stein, Joint Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of UN­HCR and IOM for Venezue­lan Refugees and Mi­grants, em­pha­sis­ing the ur­gency of com­bat­ing smug­gling and traf­fick­ing to pro­tect refugees from ex­ploita­tion.

Stein ad­vo­cates for strength­en­ing reg­u­lar path­ways to pre­vent dan­ger­ous il­le­gal en­try at­tempts, high­light­ing the need for greater col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Venezuela and host coun­tries.

May­ers sup­ports and bol­sters Steins’ view in her book by em­pha­sis­ing the im­por­tance of diplo­mat­ic ef­forts and re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion in ad­dress­ing the hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis and en­sur­ing safe and le­gal mi­gra­tion routes. Ul­ti­mate­ly, May­er’s book calls for diplo­mat­ic ef­forts to fos­ter a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to the Venezue­lan cri­sis.

Gen­nike May­ers’ “CARI­COM: Good Of­fices, Good Neigh­bour” is a pow­er­ful ex­plo­ration of Caribbean diplo­ma­cy and the es­sen­tial role of uni­ty in ad­dress­ing re­gion­al crises.

Her de­tailed analy­sis and per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences pro­vide in­valu­able in­sights in­to Cari­com’s po­ten­tial as a me­di­a­tor and the ne­ces­si­ty of em­pa­thy and co­op­er­a­tion in tack­ling re­gion­al chal­lenges.

Ex­cerpt from “CARI­COM: Good Of­fices, Good Neigh­bour” ex­clu­sive­ly for the Sun­day Guardian WE mag­a­zine.

In ex­am­in­ing the aca­d­e­m­ic lit­er­a­ture and oth­er sources, I found ev­i­dence that coun­tries with a strong sense of Caribbean iden­ti­ty, aligned with the prin­ci­ple of uni­ty em­bod­ied by the ‘Com­mu­ni­ty,’ have been ve­he­ment sup­port­ers of Cari­com’s po­si­tion on Venezuela.

On the oth­er end of the spec­trum, those coun­tries with strong eco­nom­ic mo­tives for align­ing them­selves with the US, a key trade part­ner, are the ones re­sist­ing Cari­com’s po­si­tion on Venezuela.

Fur­ther­more, coun­tries like Bar­ba­dos, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and To­ba­go, whose bal­ance of trade with the US pales in com­par­i­son to trade flows with Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, seem more in­clined to sup­port Cari­com’s po­si­tion on Venezuela, which con­tra­dicts the US po­si­tion. Per­haps these coun­tries, less re­liant on the US for trade part­ner­ships, are em­pow­ered to take a bold stand in favour of prin­ci­ples that the US has overt­ly flout­ed.

In some re­gards, the sum of in­di­vid­ual pur­suits co­in­cides with the vi­sion of one unit­ed Caribbean voice and the de­sire by Caribbean lead­ers for Cari­com to be seen as a zone of peace in a world in­creas­ing­ly plagued by civ­il and armed con­flict. This aligns with a strong sense of iden­ti­ty as es­poused by con­struc­tivist the­o­ry. Fur­ther­more, ex­ter­nal fac­tors like the pro­tract­ed Venezue­lan hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis di­rect­ly im­pact some Cari­com states more than oth­ers. For ex­am­ple, Trinidad and To­ba­go and Guyana (not dis­cussed here) host thou­sands of Venezue­lan refugees, pro­por­tion­al­ly more than their Latin Amer­i­can neigh­bours.

Apart from Trinidad and To­ba­go and Guyana, oth­er Cari­com coun­tries have re­spond­ed “to this un­prece­dent­ed dis­place­ment with re­mark­able sol­i­dar­i­ty and hos­pi­tal­i­ty while fac­ing sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges to their own economies and the so­cial fab­ric of their so­ci­eties,” ac­cord­ing to the UN­HCR-IOM Joint Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Ed­uar­do Stein (CNGM, 2020). Mean­while, thanks to sus­tained ad­vo­ca­cy ef­forts and mea­sures aimed at strength­en­ing ties with re­gion­al gov­ern­ments, Caribbean coun­tries and their stake­hold­ers have made tremen­dous progress in reg­is­ter­ing and doc­u­ment­ing Venezue­lan refugees.

The lead­ers of Bar­ba­dos, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and To­ba­go have been vo­cal in lo­cal, re­gion­al, and in­ter­na­tion­al fo­ra, call­ing for sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Venezue­lan peo­ple.

Fur­ther­more, PM Gon­salves is the chair­man of Cari­com for the pe­ri­od 1 Ju­ly to 31 De­cem­ber 2020, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly served in this ca­pac­i­ty in 2007. Bar­ba­dos PM Mot­t­ley presided with dis­tinc­tion from Jan­u­ary to June 2020 and hand­ed over the reins to PM Gon­salves dur­ing the 20th spe­cial meet­ing of Cari­com via video con­fer­ence. These lead­ers have demon­strat­ed moral lead­er­ship dur­ing their tenure as Head of Gov­ern­ment and Cari­com Chair­per­son, as they con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for peace­ful di­a­logue be­tween the Venezue­lan ac­tors while of­fer­ing sup­port with me­di­a­tion.

One thing is cer­tain: the Venezue­lan cri­sis has pro­vid­ed an un­ex­pect­ed op­por­tu­ni­ty to test the met­tle of Cari­com lead­ers. It has al­so ex­posed some hid­den agen­das and forced Cari­com lead­ers to take a stand for or against ad­her­ence to in­ter­na­tion­al law.

In line with re­al­ist the­o­ry, it can be said that some lead­ers are op­er­at­ing in strict sur­vival mode, seek­ing their self-in­ter­est. Those lead­ers who have de­fend­ed peace­ful di­a­logue, non-in­ter­fer­ence, and non-in­ter­ven­tion while re­main­ing silent on the elec­toral in­trigue be­tween Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion, stand tall to­day. These Cari­com lead­ers stood on the right side of his­to­ry and have cre­at­ed a lega­cy of which they can be proud. These are the lead­ers who de­fend­ed and nur­tured a zone of peace in the Caribbean, in di­rect con­tra­dic­tion to the war­mon­gers who has­tened to flex their mil­i­tary mus­cles amid con­fu­sion.

Al­though small in to­tal pop­u­la­tion size, Cari­com rep­re­sents a vot­ing bloc of 15 mem­ber states with the pow­er to sway de­ci­sions tak­en in wider re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the OAS. By main­tain­ing a unit­ed front, Cari­com can play a much greater role as me­di­a­tor, ex­tend­ing good of­fices to Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion lead­ers as they seek to re­solve the en­su­ing po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic cri­sis. Cari­com lead­ers need to unite be­yond a con­sen­su­al po­si­tion to demon­strate their strength to the big­ger coun­tries, who of­ten act like bul­lies in the Caribbean play­ground.

The peo­ple of Venezuela have en­dured in­es­timable suf­fer­ing while their gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion lead­ers play po­lit­i­cal games. The peo­ple de­serve a peace­ful so­lu­tion to the pro­tract­ed cri­sis that is claim­ing lives and ex­pos­ing them to stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­tion. This right to peace and pros­per­i­ty is en­shrined in the Hu­man Rights Char­ter. These in­alien­able rights should not, and must not, be sub­ject to the va­garies of pol­i­tics, eco­nom­ics, or pow­er. Peace and pros­per­i­ty are in­di­vis­i­ble.

End of Ex­cerpt

Gen­nike May­ers has used her mul­ti­lin­gual skills in in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance roles, work­ing in lo­ca­tions such as Zim­bab­we, Bangladesh, Haiti, Guade­loupe, Mar­tinique, Latin Amer­i­ca, and the Caribbean. Her ca­reer re­flects a com­mit­ment to re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian Me­dia jour­nal­ist and the win­ner of the 2023 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Non-Fic­tion for her mem­oir, Love The Dark Days. Web­site: www.iras­room.org 

Au­thor in­quiries can be sent to iras­room@gmail.com