Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has made it clear that Trinidad and To­ba­go is not in­volved in the block­ade or­dered by Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump tar­get­ing all “sanc­tioned oil tankers” en­ter­ing Venezuela.

On Tues­day, Pres­i­dent Trump said the large US naval ar­ma­da now amassed in the Caribbean “will on­ly get big­ger.” In a so­cial me­dia post, Trump said, “Venezuela is com­plete­ly sur­round­ed by the largest ar­ma­da ever as­sem­bled in the his­to­ry of South Amer­i­ca. It will on­ly get big­ger, and the shock to them will be like noth­ing they have ever seen be­fore — Un­til such time as they re­turn to the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca all of the oil, land, and oth­er as­sets that they pre­vi­ous­ly stole from us.”

The ramp­ing up of pres­sure on Cara­cas came af­ter US forces last week seized an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast, an un­usu­al move that fol­lowed a build-up of US mil­i­tary forces in the re­gion.

Speak­ing with re­porters yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the US has not re­quest­ed any as­sis­tance from Trinidad and To­ba­go in re­la­tion to the block­ade and em­pha­sised that the coun­try is not a par­tic­i­pant in any such ac­tion.

“They have asked for no as­sis­tance about blockad­ing in Venezuela, no, they have not,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said af­ter at­tend­ing the fu­ner­al for for­mer col­league Daphne Phillips.

The Prime Min­is­ter not­ed that the de­ci­sion tak­en by Pres­i­dent Trump falls with­in the sov­er­eign­ty of the Unit­ed States, adding that the US is free to pur­sue what it con­sid­ers to be in its best na­tion­al in­ter­est.

“Those are mat­ters with­in the sov­er­eign pow­ers of the Unit­ed States. I am not part of that.”

When asked about Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion should any US mil­i­tary strikes oc­cur, Per­sad-Bisses­sar stressed that the Gov­ern­ment’s pri­or­i­ty is to keep the coun­try safe. She made it clear that T&T has no ag­gres­sive in­tent to­wards Venezuela.

“T and T first, that will al­ways be our po­si­tion. We have no in­ten­tion of en­gag­ing in any war with Venezuela. I’ve al­ways said we stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Venezuela and we will con­tin­ue so to do.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so not­ed that T&T’s pri­ma­ry con­cerns re­main drug traf­fick­ing, hu­man traf­fick­ing and the il­le­gal flow of firearms. She said these is­sues con­tin­ue to pose the most sig­nif­i­cant threats to na­tion­al and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

She fur­ther ex­plained that T&T’s part­ner­ship with the Unit­ed States is cen­tred on safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion. She ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion with the progress made through this part­ner­ship thus far, not­ing that mur­ders have de­creased by 240 as a re­sult of strength­ened se­cu­ri­ty ef­forts.

“For me, it is about the drugs, hu­man traf­fick­ing, nar­co traf­fick­ing, and all those hor­ror things. We can’t be liv­ing here with over 600 mur­ders and feel like every­thing is honky do­ry and we are in a zone of peace, we are not. Trinidad and To­ba­go is def­i­nite­ly not in a peace­ful place, but it is get­ting bet­ter.”

She re­it­er­at­ed that while T&T main­tains diplo­mat­ic and co­op­er­a­tive re­la­tion­ships with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, its fo­cus re­mains firm­ly on pro­tect­ing its bor­ders and safe­guard­ing its cit­i­zens. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so rub­bished as­sess­ments that the coun­try is be­ing used as a launch­ing pad by the US mil­i­tary.

Yes­ter­day, Venezue­lan law­mak­ers ac­cused the Unit­ed States of try­ing to steal their coun­try’s oil, land, and min­er­als. They unan­i­mous­ly ap­proved a de­c­la­ra­tion re­ject­ing what they called Trump’s “grotesque threats,” say­ing they vi­o­late in­ter­na­tion­al law and Venezuela’s sov­er­eign­ty. They al­so pledged to de­nounce the move be­fore the Unit­ed Na­tions and oth­er bod­ies but urged Venezue­lans to stay mo­bilised in de­fence of the home­land. (See page 6)

Mean­while, the pres­i­dents of Mex­i­co and Brazil have ad­vo­cat­ed for re­straint and a de-es­ca­la­tion of hos­til­i­ties. Mex­i­co Pres­i­dent Clau­dia Shein­baum fur­ther called for in­ter­ven­tion from the Unit­ed Na­tions.

“It (UN) has not been present. It must as­sume its role to pre­vent any blood­shed,” Shein­baum said.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions on the es­ca­la­tion in ten­sions be­tween the US and Venezuela and its ram­i­fi­ca­tions for this coun­try from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj cau­tioned that amid grow­ing anx­i­eties, the Gov­ern­ment must tread care­ful­ly.

“It is not in our sov­er­eign in­ter­est to take a side that may not be fac­tu­al­ly cor­rect.”

Al­so com­ment­ing on the re­cent ex­pan­sion of the US trav­el ban to in­clude cit­i­zens of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and Do­mini­ca, Ram­samooj said it ap­peared to be po­lit­i­cal pun­ish­ment for coun­tries aligned with Venezuela.

“There is a lev­el of ret­ri­bu­tion, po­lit­i­cal po­si­tion­ing and Cari­com coun­tries that have lead­ers that have been aligned to Venezuela would be pay­ing a price through Trump’s po­lit­i­cal po­si­tion,” Ram­samooj said.

Browne: Sit­u­a­tion mis­han­dled

For­mer For­eign and Cari­com af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne has sharply con­demned Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s han­dling of diplo­ma­cy in the wake of Trump’s re­cent block­ade, warn­ing that T&T is be­ing drawn in­to a dan­ger­ous geopo­lit­i­cal cam­paign.

“With the re­cent oil seizures and the in­stal­la­tion of aer­i­al radars in T&T, and the blan­ket ap­proval for move­ment in our sov­er­eign air­space of mil­i­tary air­craft, the façade of a war on drugs has fad­ed and the regime change cam­paign in which the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go has im­mersed us is now stark­ly in view,” Browne said in a state­ment.

He ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of fun­da­men­tal­ly mis­man­ag­ing the sit­u­a­tion, de­clar­ing, “Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has com­plete­ly mis­han­dled this en­tire sit­u­a­tion.”

Browne said T&T’s true strength has his­tor­i­cal­ly rest­ed not in mil­i­tary align­ment but in diplo­ma­cy, di­a­logue and ad­her­ence to in­ter­na­tion­al law.

“The sov­er­eign strength of Trinidad and To­ba­go is found in the de­ploy­ment not of killing ma­chines but in the de­ploy­ment of our lega­cy of strong diplo­ma­cy and di­a­logue, in the de­ploy­ment of the voice of re­straint and me­di­a­tion, and in the res­o­lu­tion of dis­putes via peace­ful and law­ful means,” he stat­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to Browne, the coun­try is now fac­ing “a pe­ri­od of great un­cer­tain­ty and dan­ger,” which he at­trib­uted di­rect­ly to what he de­scribed as a de­par­ture from the na­tion’s long-stand­ing for­eign pol­i­cy prin­ci­ples.