THE leader of the Lucian Peoples Movement (LPM), Therold Prudent, says he is not surprised at the way Saint Lucia voted on a Venezuela resolution at the Organisation of American States (OAS).
Saint Lucia this week joined Jamaica, Haiti, the Bahamas, Guyana and 14 other members of the OAS in voting for the resolution denying the legitimacy of the second term of Venezuela’s President, Nicolas Maduro.
Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname voted against while Trinidad and Tobago, St Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, and Belize abstained.
“I believe the United States is manipulating the current Allen Chastanet administration’s vote,” Therold Prudent told St Lucia Times.
The LPM leader asserted that people have not realised how Chastanet has embraced the ‘crazy diplomacy’ of US President, Donald Trump.
He said long before Trump came to power, Chastanet was all over the world trying to seek alliances with “crazy right wing conservative groups’ that he wanted twinned with the current ruling United Workers Party (UWP) here.
Prudent expressed the view that Saint Lucia is out of place to talk about the issues within Venezuela.
“This is an issue that must be taken care of by the Venezuelan people and if they feel that the current government does not represent their needs and their interests, then they have the right to be able to vote them out,” the LPM leader told St Lucia Times.
“I am not saying that Venezuela does not have any issues. I am not saying that the situation in Venezuela is not concerning,” he explained.
However Prudent said he does not believe it is Saint Lucia’s place, especially as a country that benefitted from Venezuelan aid during that country’s heyday, to simply abandon Caracas and adopt a “United States, Donald Trump type of crazy diplomacy which seeks regime change in Venezuela and other parts of the world.”