BARBADOS, Venezuela sign Air Services, Agricultural and Education Agreement

MONTEGO BAY,  Jamaica, Jum,y 10, 2023 - Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley over the weekend, paid a one day visit to Venezuela  signing a number of agreements including Agricultural, Educational and Air Services, thus concluding a recent spate of engagements between the Bolivarian government of Venezuela  and the government of Barbados.

In recent weeks, teams from the Ministry of Energy led by Senator Lisa Cummings and the Ministry of Agriculture led by Minister Ingar Weir, visited Venezuela to discuss and negotiate cooperation programmes in Energy and Agriculture.

In addition, there have been on-line meetings between the Venezuelan Embassy in Barbados and the Ministry of Education pertaining to the educational cooperation and the use of Spanish as a second language.

Last  week, the Venezuelan Government hosted a team from Barbados including Special Envoy for Reparations and Economic enfranchisement Trevor Prescod,  to celebrate CARICOM week.

The one-day visit constituted the opening of a new and exciting chapter in Barbados' determination to look south and to look east for development prospects and not merely to look north as we have traditionally done towards North America and Europe.

“Barbados and other CARICOM countries are facing a very difficult international situation, particularly with spiraling energy prices on the international market. We recognize that Venezuela could very well hold the key to helping us get through this very difficult period with a new version of the PetroCaribe Energy Cooperation Agreement,” Prescod said.

This is one of the areas that is being looked at very closely, the extent to which Barbados could be engaged in a new version of PetroCaribe that will bring very significant relief to Barbados in revelation to energy prices.

In signing the Agreement on Agricultural Cooperation, the Government of Venezuela has gone so far as to make available to Barbados 55-thousand hectares of land in Venezuela.

Both governments also signed an air services agreement. Venezuela has a very large national airline Conviasa, and we are exploring multiple possibilities for Barbados to be a transportation Hub for the Venezuelan Airline, and exploring the possibility of Conviasa providing direct airline linkage between Venezuela and Barbados and CARICOM and the African continent.

There are also many possibilities pertaining to Education. President Maduro has made an offer of scholarships to Barbadian students wishing to pursue medicine, there is also a proposed teacher exchange programme, where Barbadian teachers travel to Venezuela to teach english and at the same time to become more proficient in the spanish language and vice versa.

Prime Minister Mottley  is the first Barbadian Head of Government to have visited Venezuela, and  upon arrival, PM Mottley and her delegation made their way to the Venezuela Pantheon where they visited the tomb of Liberator Simon Bolivar, and laid a wreath to pay respect to the Venezuelan Hero.

The prime minister’s delegation which included and CARICOM Ambassador David Comissiong,  also paid a visit to the Barbados Embassy where they were greeted by Charge d'Affaires Aquinas Clarke and his hard working staff.

The team visited with Vice President Delcie Rodrigues in Caracas’ Capitolio, where they held extensive meetings including a working lunch.

Following the meeting with the Vice President, the delegation went to Mirta Flores where Prime Minister Mottley and her team met with President Nicolas Maduro. Following the meeting, President maduro conferred on PM Mottley  ‘The Order of The Liberators of Venezuela’.

Following this, Foreign Minister Kerrie D. Symmonds signed the Agricultural Cooperation and Air Services Agreement with his Venezuelan Counterpart.

Prime Minister Mottley in a statement called for the removal of unilateral sanctions by the United States and other countries imposed on Venezuela.

She said not only were these sanctions illegally imposed, they have severely damaged the nation of Venezuela, and the welfare and wellbeing of the people of Venezuela, they are also destroying the prospects of development for countries like Barbados and the rest of CARICOM because they are making it difficult for these countries to have relations with Venezuela.

They are also making it difficult for Venezuela to relaunch the Petrocaribe  Energy  cooperation programme that can bring so much relief and developmental resources to CARICOM countries.

At the very same time, the United States has given special permission to the US Multinational Oil Corporation, Chevron, to do business with Venezuela and purchase Venezuelan Oil and benefit from Venezuela’s resources while seeking to deny that same privilege to other entities and other countries. A tremendous double standard. 

The United States has no legal right to impose those sanctions as these are properly the province of the United Nations Security Council.

-30-