Rohee urges CARICOM to turn down Venezuela oil offer
FOREIGN Minister Clement Rohee has urged Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries to refuse preferential petroleum prices the Venezuelan Government has reportedly offered some while excluding Guyana.
"We learnt that the Government of Venezuela has recently announced that it will be selling petroleum at preferential prices in view of the high prices of petroleum, to a number of countries in the Caribbean Community, excluding Guyana", the minister said Wednesday night.
"We find this to be highly discriminatory and we want to take this opportunity to appeal to member states of the Caribbean Community to reject these twenty pieces of silver in petroleum as an attempt to divide the community", Rohee said.
"I want to implore your governments to reject any offer by the Venezuelan Government to sell you petroleum at preferential prices (while) excluding Guyana from such an arrangement", he told delegates at the opening of the fourth meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD), an organ of CARICOM.
The opening was at Le Meridien Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown.
According to Rohee, if regional heads of government are to talk about solidarity, this recent development is a good example where unity could be expressed with Guyana's calls to maintain its territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
"...we should not be encouraged by such activities on the part of Venezuela to (separate) Caribbean countries by offering them preferential prices of petroleum and excluding Guyana", he reiterated.
The Guyana Foreign Minister argued that Venezuela, being a member of the Group of 77, the United Nations, and many international organisations to which the Caribbean Community belongs, should not discriminate against Guyana which is in its developing stage.
"It is highly discriminatory and unfavourable for a developing country as they (Venezuelans) describe themselves, to discriminate against another" that is struggling, he said.
He appealed to the delegates to remember that Guyana has serious problems with its neighbours, unlike some other CARICOM members that do not have border problems.
The move by Venezuela was political and it should remember that Guyana extended its full solidarity and much needed assistance to that country when it experienced devastating mudslides earlier this year, he said.
"We need the unswerving support for Guyana", he stressed.
The preferential oil offer to some CARICOM countries was reported in Venezuela media this week. (STACEY DAVIDSON)
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