Gonsalves, who was in Guyana to attend the funeral for the late Guyanese and international Statesman, Sir Shridath Ramphal, told Demerara Waves Online News that he believes that Venezuelans by rejecting the right-wing opposition, implemented a move that redounded to the security of Guyana’s rapidly developing oil industry.

   “If you have a choice between Maduro and the right wing in Venezuela, I advise you to choose Maduro. The right wing will seek to allow the Americans to take the oil in Venezuela, to set up to take over PDVSA (State oil company) and try to run Guyana’s oil industry from Caracas,” said Gonsalves, who was the first Caribbean leader to have congratulated Maduro on his victory in the July elections. 

   Gonsalves also vowed never to side with that country to take military action to seize Guyana’s Essequibo Region.

   “Anytime, if Venezuela attempts to do anything militarily, you’ll hear that I speak against it… Under anybody. No war. You have a problem, you talk about it, you solve it. I want peace between Venezuela and Guyana in the same way I want peace across the Taiwan Straits, same way I want peace in Ukraine,” he said.

   St Vincent and the Grenadines and Brazil had been instrumental in getting Presidents Ali and Maduro to agree to the Argyle Declaration for Dialogue and Peace.

   He claimed that the right wing had been taunting Maduro, telling Venezuelans that their President had to compromise with Guyana because they had friends in the Caribbean like the Vincentian leader. 

   The Vincentian leader, one of the longest-serving Caribbean Community (Caricom) Heads of Government and historically an ally of the then Marxist-Leninist People’s Progressive Party (PPP), pointed out that the right wing was always aggressive towards Guyana in pressing the claim for the Essequibo Region. “The right wing historically in Venezuela has been always pushing against Guyana,” he said.

   Gonsalves defended his declaration that “on the evidence before me” Venezuela’s July 28, 2024 elections were “fair and free” was done based on the United States’ historical posture towards elections including the toppling of democratically elected governments of Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela and Honduras over the decades dating from the 1970s to the 2000s. “America can’t teach me about elections and democracy. In my lifetime, I watched what has happened,” he said.