Ra­mona Ram­di­al

In Trin­ba­go, we have long cel­e­brat­ed our Venezue­lan con­nec­tions, es­pe­cial­ly around this time of the year. Ac­cord­ing to Su­san Maicoo (RIP), “Tri­ni Christ­mas is de bess,” but is it re­al­ly with­out such fix­tures as parang, pastelles, ponche de crème, and black cake? These are just a few year-end cul­tur­al in­flu­ences gift­ed to us by our Venezue­lan neigh­bours, but I heard one Tri­ni sug­gest that parang should be sung in Eng­lish this Christ­mas. The Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent, Del­cy Ro­driguez, has ac­cused our Gov­ern­ment of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Amer­i­can theft of Venezue­lan pe­tro­le­um by fa­cil­i­tat­ing the in­stal­la­tion of the US Army radar and con­vert­ing our ter­ri­to­ry in­to an Amer­i­can “air­craft car­ri­er.” Did the radar sys­tem re­cent­ly in­stalled at Crown Point re­al­ly de­tect the VL­CC Skip­per de­spite its lo­ca­tion spoof­ing?

Our Prime Min­is­ter has re­peat­ed­ly as­sert­ed her “Trinidad and To­ba­go first” pol­i­cy, which pri­ori­tis­es our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. She has de­nied that our coun­try will be used to launch any at­tack on Venezuela, nor that we are in­volved in the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s block­ade of sanc­tioned oil tankers.

Venezuela’s Jus­tice Min­is­ter, Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo (who has a US$25 mil­lion boun­ty on his head) took di­rect aim at PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar, say­ing, “If some­thing hap­pens to us here in Venezuela, you know what’s go­ing to hap­pen. Be cer­tain, be ab­solute­ly cer­tain, Madam.”

His fla­grant threat scares me. Venezuela pos­sess­es mis­siles that can reach any­where in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Maduro regime’s rep­e­ti­tion that we are a “vas­sal” of the US may be paint­ing us as an “easy tar­get.” Is our mil­i­tary pre­pared?

Just this week, the US House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives failed to pass a mo­tion that would have com­pelled Pres­i­dent Trump to get con­gres­sion­al ap­proval be­fore at­tack­ing Venezuela. He doesn’t need it now. I per­son­al­ly hope Pres­i­dent Maduro steps down with­out a shot in anger, as he loves “No crazy war, on­ly peace!” He can then re­tire to a lav­ish ex­ile and claim the pyrrhic vic­to­ry of ab­di­ca­tion over blood­shed. Too many in­no­cent lives are lost in the de­fence of frag­ile egos.

Our cen­tral gov­ern­ment has cul­ti­vat­ed a part­ner­ship with the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP), which con­trols the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and holds the two To­ba­go elec­toral seats. How­ev­er, THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has come out against the in­stal­la­tion of the radar and the ex­pand­ed air­port ac­cess to the US mil­i­tary.

Ahead of the Jan­u­ary 12, 2026, THA elec­tions, his po­si­tion would be in­formed by the voic­es of the To­ba­go peo­ple. He is us­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty for a fresh push for To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my. As pre­dict­ed, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment is ra­ma­jay­ing on fears of loss of sov­er­eign­ty and war on the po­lit­i­cal hus­tings in To­ba­go. Their ral­ly and launch of can­di­dates were quite im­pres­sive. Can the TPP de­fend its 13 seats against them, the IDA and the UTP?

I was hap­py to share the in­for­ma­tion that the radar had been in­stru­men­tal in the TTPS’ $171.2 mil­lion creepy mar­i­jua­na bust in the Ca­roni Swamp. How­ev­er, some have said the G/ATOR sys­tem was more ap­plic­a­ble for air de­fence than mar­itime nar­cotics in­ter­dic­tion. I will stick to the of­fi­cial re­lease. Still, CoP Gue­var­ro made it clear that his of­fi­cers did not stake out the ship­ment to make any ar­rests be­cause he felt their cov­er was al­ready blown and that they were at risk of “mos­qui­to bites and dengue.” Cit­i­zens did not re­act well to this, as they dis­cussed the mer­its of mos­qui­to re­pel­lent amongst oth­er mos­qui­to-evad­ing strate­gies of a mo­ti­vat­ed TTPS.

As the num­ber of nar­co-ter­ror­ist boats de­stroyed rose to 28 with a kill count of 104, I heard it said that our “dark econ­o­my” has tak­en a hit. How much lo­cal and for­eign cur­ren­cy is pumped in­to our econ­o­my by crime? The CBTT’s Mon­e­tary Pol­i­cy Re­port for No­vem­ber-De­cem­ber 2025 in­di­cat­ed that the dai­ly av­er­age ex­cess liq­uid­i­ty in com­mer­cial banks dropped to $3.5 bil­lion in Oc­to­ber from $6.6 bil­lion in May 2025. Moody’s re­vi­sion of our eco­nom­ic out­look down to “neg­a­tive” is more wor­ry­ing news.

As we lose sight of Drag­on Gas yet again, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal in­forms that Exxon­Mo­bil will be­gin seis­mic sur­vey­ing of TTUD 1 in Feb­ru­ary. He spoke of an “en­er­gy ac­cel­er­a­tor hub” to cut through the bu­reau­cra­cy that hin­dered en­er­gy prospect­ing in the last decade. We look for­ward to that, as we look for­ward to the restora­tion of our cross-bor­der en­er­gy deals with Venezuela in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture.

As min­istries cut back on their Christ­mas par­ties, many from the gen­er­al Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress mem­ber­ship were sur­prised on learn­ing of a hush-hush UNC fundrais­ing din­ner. MPs and sen­a­tors would have sought cor­po­rate spon­sors to pur­chase tick­ets by the ta­ble. As a UNC life mem­ber and for­mer Na­tEx of­fi­cer, the par­ty has a du­ty to at least in­form the gen­er­al mem­ber­ship of any pub­lic event. It was quite in­trigu­ing to see re­cent PNM fi­nanciers present and ac­count­ed for and kow­tow­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter. How were they able to ac­cess tick­ets be­fore the loy­al UNC mem­ber­ship? I even saw PNM Ari­ma May­or Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj at­tend­ing and get­ting in­to trou­ble with an in­ter­est­ing al­i­bi. It’s called “Par­ty in Pow­er” peo­ple! PNM mem­bers are now ask­ing for his res­ig­na­tion.

As we dis­tance our­selves from the cur­rent Venezue­lan regime, more out of ne­ces­si­ty than choice, we look for­ward to a re­union with the Venezue­lan peo­ple when this con­flict is re­solved. ¡Fe­liz Navi­dad!

Have a peace­ful and Mer­ry Christ­mas 2025, T&T!