Avellon Williams
ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES- To overcome challenges currently facing the region, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean need to take practical measures to strengthen unity, St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said.
To make progress in this battle, the prime minister told PrensaLatina that more active cooperation in the implementation of integration mechanisms is vital.
“We have good frameworks in the Association of Caribbean States, the Caribbean Community, the Community of Latin American and the Caribbean States, the ALBA; the principles are set out in documents, what we have to do is to implement them more regularly,” Gonsalves recommended.
Of course, this is easier said than done because “the imperialism is always very active in creating divisions and dissidence, challenges and difficulties,” said the prime minister, who traveled to Cuba to attend the Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America-People’s Trade Treaty.
He added that the blockade does not only harm Cuba but also affects other countries; the unilateral sanctions against Venezuela that violate international law generate difficulties for the PetroCaribe Agreement, for instance.
Venezuela and several Caribbean countries have formed an oil alliance, called Energy Cooperation Agreement, that allows them to purchase Venezuelan oil under preferential payment conditions.
It emerged as a political initiative based on the rational use of the non-renewable and exhaustible energy resources, with the aim of enabling regional integration and sustained development on the basis of complementarity, solidarity, and social responsibility.
A list of PetroCaribe signatory nations includes Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, El Salvador, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Venezuela.
