Gov­ern­ment is sup­port­ing an ini­tia­tive by the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean states (CELAC) for di­a­logue aimed at halt­ing vi­o­lence in neigh­bour­ing Venezuela, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an said yes­ter­day.In a tele­phone in­ter­view, Dook­er­an said: "We are in touch with our Cara­cas em­bassy which has been giv­ing a full ap­praisal of the sit­u­a­tion as well as the con­di­tions that are dif­fi­cult in eco­nom­ic terms, re­flect­ed in the is­sue of for­eign ex­change, ris­ing prices and af­fect­ing trans­porta­tion links be­tween T&T and Venezuela even for diplo­mats and oth­er of­fi­cials."It's gen­er­at­ed a sense of un­easi­ness among the Venezue­lan pop­u­la­tion and even at the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean States (ACS) meet­ing held two days ago in Port-of-Spain."He added: "Gov­ern­ment is mon­i­tor­ing de­vel­op­ments close­ly. We will sup­port CELAC ini­tia­tives to bring about di­a­logue among the rel­e­vant par­ties to­wards an ap­pro­pri­ate de-es­ca­la­tion of the vi­o­lence.

A CELAC meet­ing sched­uled for Cara­cas to­day was be­ing brought for­ward to last night, Venezue­lan sources said yes­ter­day.Re­gion­al am­bas­sador Mervyn As­sam, agree­ing CELAC may have a role to play, said Venezue­lan sta­bil­i­ty was im­por­tant for T&T and the re­gion. He said it ap­peared the Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing prob­lems even af­ter the death of for­mer leader Hugo Chavez.Mean­while, T&T's am­bas­sador to Venezuela. An­tho­ny Edge­hill, com­ment­ing on the grow­ing un­rest, said the flow of in­for­ma­tion about it was be­ing close­ly "man­aged" by the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties.Edge­hill, who is based in Cara­cas, spoke to the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a week of protests in Cara­cas and oth­er cities.It in­volved clash­es among uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents and ri­val groups of Op­po­si­tion and Gov­ern­ment sym­pa­this­ers as well as law en­force­ment agen­cies of Venezuela's Nico­las Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion.Protests so far have left three dead–two youths and a mem­ber of a civil­ian mili­tia group–hun­dreds in­jured and scores de­tained, he added.But no T&T na­tion­als have been in­jured, Edge­hill said.

He added there were thou­sands of T&T na­tion­als in Venezuela and six T&T na­tion­als at the em­bassy. He as­sured that the em­bassy had an evac­u­a­tion plan in event of any ex­treme de­vel­op­ments.The un­rest be­gan a week ago when stu­dents protest­ed on Na­tion­al Youth Day and Gov­ern­ment sup­port­ers re­spond­ed with a march for life and peace.It has in­volved vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing the fire-bomb­ing of a le­gal of­fi­cial's di­vi­sion–and loot­ing which each side has ac­cused the oth­er of in­sti­gat­ing. Maduro has made it clear he will not tol­er­ate the block­ing of roads or any vi­o­lence.Edge­hill said Op­po­si­tion leader Hen­ry Capriles was some­what dis­tanced from the sit­u­a­tion and was call­ing for peace and dis­arm­ing of mili­tia groups.Vi­o­lence was de­scribed as more lo­calised in east­ern Cara­cas and oth­er ar­eas, though not wide­spread.Edge­hill said an­oth­er protest march was ex­pect­ed to­day, though the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties said that march was il­le­gal. Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly to­day, an­oth­er march by work­ers of the state-owned Pede­vsa oil com­pa­ny, which sup­ports the Maduro gov­ern­ment, has been sched­uled.Edge­hill said the sit­u­a­tion has ex­ac­er­bat­ed al­ready ex­ist­ing short­age of sta­ples, air­line flights – in­clud­ing flights to T&T – and util­i­ty ser­vices.