A lesson the PSC missed

(Kaieteur News) – There is no question that Guyanese would have noticed the brooch worn by Delcy Rodríguez during her recent visits to Grenada and Barbados. Nor is there any doubt that for Guyanese the depiction of the Essequibo as Venezuelan on that brooch cuts deeply.

But it does not follow that Barbados or Grenada should have turned that provocation into a diplomatic confrontation. To expect that outcome is to misunderstand how diplomacy actually works.

Let us flip the coin. Should Venezuela then also take offence every time a Guyanese official wear or displays a pin or lapel showing the Essequibo as part of Guyana? If symbolism alone is to trigger diplomatic protest, then consistency would demand outrage on both sides; yet diplomacy has never functioned on that basis, because states routinely express their positions—even contested ones—without expecting third parties to police them.

Diplomacy begins with protocol. When a state receives a high-level visitor, particularly one acting in a presidential capacity, it assumes obligations of courtesy and respect.

Asking a visiting leader to remove an item of personal attire, even one laden with political symbolism, would be highly irregular and almost certainly interpreted as a public insult. For a small state like Barbados, such a move would have been counterproductive.

Had Barbados intervened over the brooch, it would have been seen not as a neutral host but as an active participant in the dispute. That, in turn, could have provoked a sharp response from Venezuela, injecting unnecessary tension into regional relations. Diplomacy, especially in the Caribbean, often relies on lowering the temperature, not raising it.

Caribbean Community states have consistently supported Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Nothing done recently should call that into question. But despite unequivocally supporting Guyana’s sovereignty, CARICOM states have also preserved channels of communication with Venezuela. That dual approach CARICOM states to advocate for international law while still engaging Venezuela in dialogue. If Barbados had publicly rebuked Rodríguez over her brooch, it might have compromised its ability to function as a credible interlocutor.

There is, too, a practical dimension that the PSC’s position seems to overlook. Where exactly would one draw the line? If a brooch is unacceptable what if the same map had been tattooed on the visitor’s arm? Or a less conspicuous part of the person anatomy. Would Barbados have been expected to demand that it be covered or removed?

The absurdity of that scenario underscores the difficulty of policing symbolic expression in diplomacy. Once a host begins to regulate the personal or political symbols of its guests, it enters a minefield.

More importantly, focusing on the brooch risks missing the larger picture. Venezuela’s recent diplomatic outreach to Grenada and Barbados and the Venezuela’s President’s meeting with a former Trinidad Prime Minister now in the Opposition, is not occurring in a vacuum. It is part of a broader effort to reassert influence in the region and to shape political alignments. By engaging capitals like Bridgetown and St. George’s, Caracas is signalling that it retains friends and partners in the Caribbean, despite external pressures. In that sense, the visit was less about a piece of jewellery and more about geopolitics.

Indeed, one could argue that the real objective was to test and, if possible, widen divisions within the region, particularly between those states seen as sympathetic to Venezuela and those aligned with positions associated with United States policy toward Caracas.

None of this diminishes Guyana’s right to defend its sovereignty vigorously, including through what is sometimes called “map diplomacy.” When Guyanese officials attend international conferences, they are fully entitled to protest the use of maps that do not reflect the territory over which Guyana lawfully exercises sovereignty.

But it is one thing for a party to a dispute to advance its claims; it is quite another to expect third-party states to enforce those claims in the course of routine diplomatic engagement.

In the end, diplomacy is often about choosing which battles to fight and where to fight them. Barbados choose not to turn a symbolic provocation into a diplomatic rupture. That was not an act of indifference, nor of disloyalty to Guyana. It was a calculation rooted in protocol, prudence, and the realities of small-state diplomacy.

The PSC is right to insist on vigilance in defending Guyana’s borders. But it is wrong to assume that every gesture must be publicly contested by every friendly state.

Sometimes, restraint is not weakness. It is strategy. But one should not expect our Private Sector Commission to understand this.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper