St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) can expect concrete help from the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP).

Sacha Llorentti, secretary general of ALBA-TCP.

A team from ALBA-TCP, including the secretary general Sacha Llorentti was on the ground in the red zone this week and met with SEARCHLIGHT before one of their tours.

“We are here to express our solidarity with the Prime Minister and people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and also make an assessment of the situation to try and establish the best ways in which ALBA could help the efforts of the government,” Llorentti commented on Monday.

He said ALBA contributed to the humanitarian effort immediately following the start of explosive eruption of La Soufriere, by sending a ship to bring water and supplies from Cuba and St. Lucia but ALBA-TCP intends to do much more.

“We want to help as much as we can on the issue of the volcano and the pandemic.

“In January, we established a humanitarian fund for some countries to be able to buy vaccines with this fund, and we’re also looking at ways in which we can also strengthen the recovery efforts regarding agriculture,” Llorentti explained.

He and his team toured the red zone with Minister of Agriculture Saboto Caesar where they assessed and tried to see the best way they could help.

The Secretary General said nine countries are part of ALBA and despite three of these countries, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua being under “huge and illegal pressure from the United States”, with embargoes, blockades and unilateral coercive methods, the alliance is nevertheless working trying to assist different kinds of situations, particularly in SVG.

“Even under those circumstances the alliance is showing solidarity,” Llorentti said while noting that they will return to SVG soon with concrete assistance for the Government.

“We don’t want to say in advance, but our next trip we will say specifically,” Llorentti promised.

He added that they have never dealt with a country that was experiencing a volcanic eruption and ALBA’s humanitarian fund was set up more with earthquakes, hurricanes and flooding in mind.