By Earl Bousquet From Caribbean News Now

The wider Caribbean finds itself slap dash in the middle of an unfolding situation that’s already tearing apart the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and possibly the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), even as it unfolds.

The English-speaking part of the region is being separated over Venezuela and CARICOM states are more deeply divided than ever over ties with Caracas, which has over the last 19 years built stronger ties with the entire Caribbean, but is now a prime target for externally-backed regime change.

Almost all CARICOM member states also belong to the PetroCaribe and the ALBA groupings and all have benefited in various ways from their membership. All six OECS member-states belong to both entities and recently reaffirmed their support for the regional integration objectives carved out in their aims and objective.

Venezuela is a founding member of the Organization of American States (OAS) and of late, especially under the current secretary general, it’s also been the target of a powerful minority within the OAS bent on using the hemispheric organization as launching pad for external intervention in Venezuela.

From April 3, the powerful minority has been trying hard, though unsuccessfully, to get support for efforts to give life to its outdated ‘Democratic Charter’ to engineer legal OAS support for the violent opposition to the Nicolas Maduro administration.

Every effort to garner full OAS support for externally-generated regime change in Caracas has so far failed.

The anti-Venezuela OAS lobby had been unable to get the majority support needed, as more than half of the 34 member-state do not support intervention. They failed on April 3 to activate the ‘charter’ and again failed on April 19 to get enough support for an OAS statement blaming the Venezuela government for the opposition violence and calling for premature general elections.

But the anti-Venezuela diplomatic lobbying has continued within the OAS, resulting in deepening division within the wider body between those who support a forced removal of the elected Maduro government and those who don’t.

Now that division has reached CARICOM and the OECS.

Under pressure from the powerful minority anti-Venezuela lobby, representatives of most vulnerable Caribbean and Latin American OAS member states have been pressed to take individual hurried stances on Venezuela that have resulted in a similar split between the Caribbean member states as between the Latin Americans.

On April 26, the OAS Permanent Council, which includes all 34 member states, agreed to summon a meeting of foreign affairs ministers “to consider the situation in Venezuela”. The vote was 19 for, ten against, four abstentions and one absent. This was a seismic shift in balance of forces.

Caracas has read the tea leaves well and recognizing that its powerful opponents have finally been able to summon a majority vote on a Venezuela issue, has decided to exit the OAS instead of being expelled.

Cuba was expelled from the OAS back in 1961 in a similar way, after the USA had failed to get enough Latin American states to support its military plans to invade the island and turn back the Cuban Revolution. (Back then, CARICOM did not exist and there were no English-speaking Caribbean member states of the OAS.)

But when the Venezuelans take a look today at how Caribbean countries voted on April 26, they will understandably have reason to worry about just how much they can firmly rely on CARICOM and the OECS for solidarity and support tomorrow.

The Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Saint Lucia voted in favor of calling the fateful meeting, while Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Haiti, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname voted against. Belize and Trinidad and Tobago abstained — and Grenada was absent.

Venezuela’s president has recently met collectively with leaders of the OECS; and with Venezuela currently holding the presidency of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), Maduro has also met with the ACS leaders. But he has not yet met with CARICOM leaders.

Guyana is the current rotating chair of CARICOM – and was one of the minority five CARICOM states (out of a total of 14) that voted in favour of the fateful OAS foreign affairs ministers meeting.

Guyana also has a century-old territorial dispute with Venezuela in a region where Exxon Mobil is today drilling oil for Guyana, which can now also lead to events that can eventually widen and deepen the CARICOM division already achieved over pursuit of externally-generated regime change in Venezuela.

Now that Venezuela has opted to pull out of the OAS and given notice of its intention to activate the two-year ‘Vexit’ departure clause, this will blunt any decision to expel it from the OAS.

Interestingly, the anti-Venezuela lobby was so much in a hurry to secure the summoning of a meeting to discuss Venezuela’s fate that not even a date or venue for the foreign ministers meeting was set. Caracas has however made it clear to those seeking to kick it out of the OAS that its fate will never be decided by the likes of the OAS or Washington.

Washington’s dominance of the OAS from inception and growing opposition to its interventionism in the region eventually led to the establishment of the CELAC group, which, like the OAS, unites Latin American and Caribbean states — but excludes membership by the USA and Canada.

With the OAS now hounding Venezuela out, Caracas is counting on a May 2 CELAC meeting in El Salvador to denounce external intervention in its internal affairs – a most likely possibility in the absence of the leaders of the powerful OAS anti-Venezuela minority.

But whatever happens at the CELAC meeting in San Salvador or at the undated OAS Foreign Ministers conference, it seems more likely than not – barring some quick and smart remedial diplomatic footwork — that CARICOM will no longer be at one on ties with Venezuela as at this time, one year ago.

IMAGE: Earl Bousquet is Editor-at-Large of The Diplomatic Courierand author of the regional newspaper column entitled Chronicles of a Chronic Caribbean Chronicler

For more on this story go to: http://caribbeannewsnow.com/headline-Commentary%3A-Chronicles-of-a-Chronic-Caribbean-Chronicler%3A-Venezuela-to-%27Vexit%27-the-OAS%2C-but-where-does-CARICOM-stand%3F-34313.html