Tread carefully with Venezuela, academics warn

Gonzales said given that Venezuela was a hub for crime, that alone had implications “for all of us in the region” and the threat should not be taken lightly. “We see the consequences of it in terms of the trafficking of arms, human trafficking, piracy and all the other negative effects. So the process of this integration in Venezuela has very serious negative consequences for us,” he stressed. Suggesting that things could get worse, Gonzales said the military was the one “holding the society together” at this point. “I could go on a bit with the negative aspects but we know what they are. I think we as small states we have to see Venezuela as a national security threat,” said Gonzales, who perceives that “we [in the Caribbean] have a problem on our hands and we need to sit down and look properly at it and see what we can do about it. More…