Cur­tis Ward

Fol­low­ing is an opin­ion on the on­go­ing US-Venezuela ten­sions, as it re­lates to T&T’s stance, pub­lished in yes­ter­day’s edi­tion of the Ja­maica Ob­serv­er.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar switched from ob­fus­ca­tions and de­nials to ad­mis­sion of re­al­i­ty – her Gov­ern­ment un­re­served­ly sided with pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s US mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion against Venezuela to ef­fect regime change; re­mov­ing Nicolás Maduro from pow­er and re­plac­ing him with a Wash­ing­ton-friend­ly gov­ern­ment in Cara­cas – a gov­ern­ment that would give the US un­fet­tered ac­cess to the coun­try’s vast oil re­sources and a geopo­lit­i­cal and se­cu­ri­ty al­ly strate­gi­cal­ly sit­u­at­ed in South Amer­i­ca to ad­vance US hemi­spher­ic hege­mo­ny.

This is of far greater im­por­tance than what T&T has to of­fer the Unit­ed States in the long term.

But what is the price the coun­try of T&T and the peo­ple could pay for short-term undis­closed ben­e­fits ac­cru­ing to the prime min­is­ter in ex­change for the risks to the coun­try’s long-term safe­ty and pros­per­i­ty? The in­stal­la­tion of a mil­i­tary radar – not a civil­ian radar as first rep­re­sent­ed – at the coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al air­port, threat­ens the coun­try’s most im­por­tant in­fra­struc­ture. The T&T Gov­ern­ment made the air­port perime­ter a mil­i­tary tar­get. It has put T&T’s in­ter­na­tion­al civil­ian air­port, which is in­te­gral to the coun­try’s econ­o­my, in jeop­ardy – a tar­get on her back, T&T in the crosshairs.

The radar sys­tem in­stalled by the US mil­i­tary is de­signed for mon­i­tor­ing air­craft and mis­siles – not mar­itime traf­fic in the Caribbean Sea as orig­i­nal­ly sug­gest­ed. It doesn’t tar­get nar­co-traf­fick­ing by small boats. In ad­di­tion, the radar is in­te­grat­ed in­to an au­to­mat­ed an­ti-mis­sile re­sponse sys­tem to de­stroy mis­siles fired from Venezue­lan ter­ri­to­ry. The radar is a war as­set, and it will be a pri­ma­ry tar­get for Venezue­lan mis­siles and bombers, should the Venezue­lan mil­i­tary re­spond to US ag­gres­sion. De­grad­ing and neu­tral­is­ing the radar sys­tem will be strate­gic for the Venezue­lan mil­i­tary in pros­e­cut­ing a war with the Unit­ed States. It will be a pri­or­i­ty tar­get, should the con­flict es­ca­late mil­i­tar­i­ly.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has placed a mil­i­tary tar­get on the backs of the coun­try and the peo­ple. It is a sce­nario in which more Trinida­di­an and To­bag­o­ni­ans than Amer­i­can cit­i­zens could be killed. Far more dam­age will be done to T&T’s in­fra­struc­ture and econ­o­my than to that of the Unit­ed States thou­sands of miles away.

It is con­cern­ing that, in the Prime Min­is­ter’s rush to com­pete for the radar in­stal­la­tion on T&T ter­ri­to­ry, there ap­pears to have been lit­tle ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the risks to the coun­try and peo­ple. Her ad­vis­ers seemed obliv­i­ous to the im­pli­ca­tions of her de­ci­sion. It re­flects a lack of glob­al dy­nam­ics – lack­ing knowl­edge or un­der­stand­ing of the geopo­lit­i­cal and se­cu­ri­ty im­pli­ca­tions for the coun­try. Or the prime min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion-mak­ing mere­ly re­flects blind ad­her­ence to the ‘Amer­i­ca First’ for­eign-pol­i­cy ide­ol­o­gy of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Hav­ing placed the coun­try and peo­ple of T&T in the crosshairs of a pos­si­ble mis­sile re­sponse by Venezuela, should the US car­ry out mil­i­tary strikes against the coun­try, the plan must in­clude in­stal­la­tion of the ‘iron dome’ on T&T ter­ri­to­ry – as done for Is­rael – or en­hanced pro­tec­tion by US war­ships de­ployed and equipped with an­ti-mis­sile tech­nol­o­gy. Nei­ther op­tion pro­vides a 100 per cent guar­an­tee that no Venezue­lan mis­sile will land on T&T soil.

The sit­u­a­tion drifts rapid­ly to­wards mil­i­tary con­flict. In re­cent days, the US mil­i­tary an­nounced three new strikes killing eight peo­ple and bring­ing the to­tal killed close to 100. This fol­lowed the seizure of a tanker loaded with Venezuela oil af­ter de­part­ing a Venezue­lan port. Pres­i­dent Trump sub­se­quent­ly an­nounced he had closed Venezuela’s air­space to com­mer­cial avi­a­tion. Pres­i­dent Trump al­so an­nounced a com­plete block­ade of oil tankers car­ry­ing Venezue­lan oil leav­ing the coun­try’s ports. The Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment said it will pro­vide the tankers with mil­i­tary es­cort. At­tempts to pre­vent clear pas­sage – in­cludes Chi­nese and Russ­ian-flagged tankers – broad­ens the pos­si­bil­i­ty of mil­i­tary con­fronta­tion.

The stakes for T&T re­sult­ing from Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­plic­i­ty in­crease ex­po­nen­tial­ly with each bel­li­cose de­c­la­ra­tion from Wash­ing­ton. From mere­ly con­firm­ing tra­di­tion­al­ly friend­ly re­la­tions – US-T&T part­ner­ship on mu­tu­al se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic in­ter­ests – has es­ca­lat­ed to a mil­i­tary al­liance against Venezuela and a col­lab­o­ra­tor in the pol­i­cy of regime change. Per­sad-Bisses­sar has en­dorsed and is com­plic­it in ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings in the Caribbean Sea, de­scribed by le­gal ex­perts as the com­mis­sion of war crimes. She has aban­doned the con­cept pro­mot­ed by the coun­try’s found­ing prime min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams and sub­se­quent T&T and Caribbean lead­ers of main­tain­ing the Caribbean as a “Zone of Peace.” She oblit­er­at­ed a decades-old re­gion­al pol­i­cy. She has shat­tered what lit­tle uni­ty ex­ist­ed in Cari­com; and she has shown to­tal dis­re­spect for her re­gion­al col­leagues. She acts with im­puni­ty and with­out op­pro­bri­um.

There is not even a dis­cernible whis­per of op­po­si­tion or crit­i­cism from most Caribbean lead­ers. They shield their si­lence in the prin­ci­ple of non-in­ter­fer­ence in T&T’s in­ter­nal af­fairs. Some cow­er in fear of re­tal­i­a­tion by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion. They lack courage. While there is no need for con­fronta­tion­al rhetoric, they fear ret­ri­bu­tion even to whis­per a dis­sent. They com­pro­mise the dig­ni­ty and what is left of their coun­tries’ sov­er­eign­ty.

On­ly the cit­i­zens of T&T – at home and in the di­as­po­ra – can hope to change the arc of their coun­try’s his­to­ry. Re­vers­ing the path which leads to mil­i­tary con­flict with Venezuela may al­ready be too late. The tip­ping point may have been breached. But it is not too late for Caribbean lead­ers to re­claim their voic­es and in­tegri­ty by ad­vo­cat­ing di­a­logue and peace. They should at least as­sure the peo­ple of T&T that their Caribbean broth­ers and sis­ters in the re­gion and the di­as­po­ra are op­posed to war against Venezuela and T&T’s in­volve­ment. Even a whis­per might prove to be a cat­a­lyst for the peo­ple of T&T to have their op­po­si­tion to the war and their coun­try’s par­tic­i­pa­tion res­onate in Wash­ing­ton, where de­ci­sions are made.

Con­gres­sion­al op­po­si­tion grows in­creas­ing­ly stronger to the il­le­gal ac­tions of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion – ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings of al­leged nar­co-traf­fick­ers, and pur­suit of an un­de­clared war. There is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for gov­ern­ments of the re­gion and the peo­ple of T&T to ex­press their op­po­si­tion to a mil­i­tary res­o­lu­tion of the in­ter­nal prob­lems of Venezuela. Mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion will not make the sit­u­a­tion bet­ter but will make it worse for the peo­ple of Venezuela. It will desta­bilise the en­tire re­gion. Fur­ther­more, avoid­ance of mil­i­tary con­flict will re­lease the peo­ple of T&T of the bur­den of cer­tain tragedy they are oth­er­wise like­ly to face.

War is not the an­swer. War is not the on­ly op­tion. And war is not in­evitable. Per­haps good sense will pre­vail and there will be a pull­back from the brink of mil­i­tary con­flict.

Cur­tis Ward is the for­mer am­bas­sador of Ja­maica to the Unit­ed Na­tions, with spe­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil af­fairs.