Venezuela’s Ambassador to T&T Coromoto Godoy yesterday expressed gratitude to the many local groups that have shown support and solidarity with her country. “Venezuela has been developing solidarity with T&T for many years now. Today, there are different social movements from T&T, political movements like the Movement Social Justice (MSJ) and trade unions, saying they want to express solidarity with us.
“We have two buses coming from Cedros who are fishermen. There are university lecturers calling us to show support. It means the people from T&T are with us and they understand what is happening in Venezuela and the terrible incident with US President Obama,” she said.
The ambassador made the comment during a baseball game at the Queen's Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain, yesterday involving Venezuelans, Cubans and nationals of the Dominican Republic. Groups representing T&T's civil society were in attendance showing solidarity with Venezuela in its diplomatic tug of war with the United States. In a statement yesterday, the MSJ expressed solidarity with the Venezuelan people and democratically elected Government of Venezuela.
“The events of the past week in which the United States has intensified sanctions against Venezuela and deemed that Government as a threat to national security interests have made the issues clearer. The MSJ has no doubt that the United States is pursuing its old imperial agenda of seeking to control strategic resources globally and to control oil and energy resources,” the release said. The MSJ said the issues is not democracy as claimed by the United States but its unstable relationship with Venezuela is about oil and geo-politics.
The party also referred to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's visit to T&T three weeks ago, saying it took place “at a difficult time for our next door neighbour and most Caribbean economies.” “The evidence is clear that this is being done by local merchants in co-ordination with the US Government to destabilise the economy in order to promote regime change.” The MSJ said Venezuela has helped smaller Caribbean economies that have been faring poorly.
“Venezuela has reached out to provide sharply discounted oil and gas supplies to help these countries face intense economic crises of the last decade,” the party said.