Pompeo: Holness stands up to Maduro dictatorship
AS WASHINGTON forges stronger alliances across the region to pressure the beleaguered Venezuelan regime to relinquish power amid socioeconomic turmoil, United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has heaped praise on Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness for“standing up to the illegitimate destabilising Maduro dictatorship and its brutal repression”.
Speaking at a joint press conference yesterday at Jamaica House in St Andrew, Pompeo told reporters that the US was pleased with Holness’ leadership.
“We will keep working together to help the Venezuelan people to have a democratic nation with free and fair elections and a return to prosperity that the Venezuelan people deserve.”
He said that the United States was proud that its neighbours within the Caribbean were working to secure a prosperous, stable, and peaceful hemisphere.
“A strong, freedom-minded OAS (Organisation of American States) is crucial to that effort. Prime Minister Holness and I share the goal of empowering that organisation,” the senior US diplomat said.
JAMAICAN LEADERSHIP
During a discussion on policy issues at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in Kingston yesterday afternoon, Pompeo again lauded “the leadership that Jamaica has demonstrated in the CARICOM region”.
“We made it very clear who we think should be the next leader of the OAS. We made that clear because we think he has demonstrated his ability to return financial stability to the institution to a really important place for all member states of the OAS,” said the secretary of state.
Indicating that the US was deepening its efforts to engage the region in energy investments, Pompeo said that the PetroCaribe arrangement with states across the region was “fading into the sunset like the Maduro regime will do”.
The US and some 50 other countries recognise Opposition Leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s sole legitimate leader.
Established in June 2005, the PetroCaribe Energy Cooperation Agreement was an alliance between Venezuela and Caribbean and Latin American countries, including 15 CARICOM states, to purchase oil at preferential rates.
In 2018, former chief executive officer of the then PetroCaribe Development Fund, Dr Wesley Hughes, said that the PetroCaribe arrangement had resulted in the financing of projects worth US$5 billion in little more than a decade.
He said then that the contribution of the fund to Jamaica had been “meaningful and significant”.
In January 2019, Jamaica sided with 18 other members of the OAS in favour of a resolution not to recognise the legitimacy of Nicolás Maduro’s new term as Venezuela’s president. The resolution was passed in Washington minutes after Maduro was sworn in.
One month after the OAS vote, the Jamaican Government sought to explain that the move to compulsorily acquire Venezuela’s shares in Petrojam was purely economic.