Raphael John-Lall

Venezue­lan Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of be­ing in a “drunk stu­por” and warned of a “force­ful re­sponse” if Trinidad and To­ba­go al­lows the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary to use its ter­ri­to­ry to at­tack Venezuela.

The re­marks mark the first pub­lic re­ac­tion from a se­nior Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial since Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised Cari­com for align­ing it­self with Venezuela, which she de­scribed as a “dic­ta­tor­ship,” in a state­ment post­ed on her X ac­count on Sun­day night.

In that post, the Prime Min­is­ter al­so ac­cused the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment—with­out pro­vid­ing ev­i­dence—of im­pris­on­ing and killing “thou­sands of Venezue­lans.”

Ca­bel­lo, wide­ly re­gard­ed as Venezuela’s sec­ond most pow­er­ful of­fi­cial af­ter Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro and who over­sees the mil­i­tary and state se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, is­sued the warn­ing dur­ing a tele­vised ap­pear­ance on Mon­day night.

“Venezuela is not fight­ing with any­one, but they leave us no al­ter­na­tive. If Trinidad lends its ter­ri­to­ry to at­tack Venezuela, we have to re­spond, and we have no oth­er choice to pre­vent them from at­tack­ing us,” Ca­bel­lo said.

Speak­ing at an event broad­cast on the state tele­vi­sion chan­nel Vene­zolana de Tele­visión (VTV), Ca­bel­lo al­leged that the US mil­i­tary is al­ready “us­ing Trinida­di­an ter­ri­to­ry” against Venezuela—a claim for which he of­fered no ev­i­dence.

He fur­ther claimed that Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens do not sup­port such ac­tions, say­ing both coun­tries have “al­ways lived in peace.”

“We hear this la­dy from Trinidad, who is still in a ‘drunk­en stu­por,’ al­low­ing the ter­ri­to­ry of Trinidad to be used against Venezuela,” Ca­bel­lo said.

“We have al­ways lived in peace, but if Trinidad lends its ter­ri­to­ry to at­tack Venezuela, we must re­spond with max­i­mum pop­u­lar, mil­i­tary-po­lice fu­sion,” he added.