Veteran Guyanese and Caribbean Trade Unionist, Lincoln Lewis, has issued a call for St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, to be removed as the interlocutor of any discussion between Guyana and Venezuela on the border controversy.

Last week, the St. Vincent Prime Minister wrote to President Irfaan Ali to explain that a photograph that surfaced of him standing behind a map of Venezuela that included Guyana’s Essequibo region, was taken in December 2022 and he was unaware of the depiction with the map until recently.

The Government of Guyana appears to have accepted the explanation, with Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo even referencing photographs that he has taken before with questionable characters.

But Trade Unionist, Lincoln Lewis in a letter to the press said the Guyana Government needs to rethink its position on having him continue as an interlocutor.

“President Ali’s government is called on to rethink its position on the continued presence of Gonsalves as interlocutor. All Guyanese must demand he removes himself for he is a clear and present threat to our territorial integrity”, Lewis wrote.

He said the issue cannot just be swept aside as a mistake on the part of the Prime Minister of St. Vincent.

“Error or no error, the stakes are too high to permit the presumed mistake of Gonsalves, to think it is even possible. He was not careful enough. He had a right to know what he was holding up, what it represented. He is a regional leader, he had a right to ask and make the appropriate decision, which was to excuse himself from that photograph. Holding a photograph that violates the sovereignty of his CARICOM sister country must be seen as sacrilegious. There must be no compromise,” the Trade Unionist said.

Lewis also questioned the reason behind the St. Vincent Prime Minister and the Dominica Prime Minister remaining as Permanent interlocutors on the discussions between Guyana and Venezuela even after they no longer hold the position as President of CELAC and Chairman of CARICOM.

“We must further review the section of the Argyle agreement that states: Both States agreed that Prime Minister Ralph E. Gonsalves, the Pro-Tempore President of CELAC, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, the incumbent CARICOM Chairman, and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil will remain seized of the matter as Interlocutors and the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres as Observer, with the ongoing concurrence of Presidents Irfaan Ali and Nicolas Maduro. For the avoidance of doubt, Prime Minister Gonsalves’ role will continue even after Saint Vincent and the Grenadines ceases to be the Pro-Tempore President of CELAC, within the framework of the CELAC Troika plus one; and Prime Minister Skerrit’s role will continue as a member of the CARICOM Bureau. What this section says to us is that this matter has been placed in the hands of individuals, not institutions, which is considered very dangerous. For while the institutions can be held accountable these men in their personal capacity cannot be.  If tomorrow they no longer hold their positions, why must they remain involved and not the institutions, when it is their offices that gave them entry into the matter?”, Lewis questioned.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines hosted a meeting last month between the Presidents of Guyana and Venezuela, giving birth to the Argyle Declaration in the height of mounting tensions between the two countries over Venezuela’s continued claims of Guyana’s Essequibo region and its ongoing objection to the case filed by Guyana before the International Court of Justice.

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