Belize Urges Calm Amid U.S.-Venezuela Tensions

Belize is doubling down on its pledge to keep the CARICOM region a zone of peace, even as tensions heat up between the U.S. and Venezuela. Today, Washington announced it destroyed four suspected drug-trafficking vessels, leaving more than a dozen people dead. Trinidad and Tobago is caught in the middle and is backing U.S. military presence in the region. Here at home, Prime Minister John Briceño says he’s hoping cooler heads prevail and the situation calms down soon.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“We look at the Caribbean as a zone of peace, and we need to do everything to keep it as that and as that Venezuela has been a partner and Trinidad and Tobago is a member of CARICOM. So, we hope that we could be able to tone down the rhetoric and tone down this whole talk about an invasion into Venezuela because that helps no one.”

 

Reporter
“But are you prepared to condemn the United States for the extraterritorial, extrajudicial assassination?”

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“It’s not about condemning anybody. It’s about calling on what is happening and we have done that already. We have already condemned the shooting of these boats in some instances and maybe there may be drugs in there. We don’t know but it is something that we have condemned already.”