JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 24, 2025

CAL to airlift Trinis from Venezuela

by

20140223

The Gov­ern­ment is prepar­ing a con­tin­gency plan in­volv­ing Caribbean Air­lines to evac­u­ate any T&T na­tion­als and staff of this coun­try's Cara­cas Em­bassy out of strife-torn Venezuela if the sit­u­a­tion there de­te­ri­o­rates fur­ther, act­ing For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal said yes­ter­day.

Mooni­lal told the T&T Guardian he has been talk­ing with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai, the line min­is­ter for CAL, about the plan, in case vi­o­lence in Venezuela–go­ing on for more than a week–be­comes worse.

Clash­es have been tak­ing place since Feb­ru­ary 12 be­tween stu­dents and state agen­cies, as well as be­tween sup­port­ers of Venezue­lan op­po­si­tion groups and those of Pres­i­dent Nicholas Maduro. Most re­cent­ly, para­troop­ers were dis­patched to the state of Tachi­ra where vi­o­lent stu­dent protests were re­port­ed.

Late Sat­ur­day T&T's For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry is­sued a state­ment as­sur­ing that all of the six T&T staff at its Cara­cas em­bassy were safe and arrange­ments were be­ing made to se­cure them. It al­so said the em­bassy's hours were be­ing re­duced to deal with the sit­u­a­tion in Cara­cas and an evac­u­a­tion plan was on the ta­ble.Mooni­lal said yes­ter­day: "We're mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion very close­ly via Am­bas­sador An­tho­ny Edghill in Cara­cas. I'm get­ting re­ports every 12 hours.

"Af­ter I re­ceived a re­port on the sit­u­a­tion last Sat­ur­day I talked with Min­is­ters Grif­fith and Howai to have plans in place to evac­u­ate T&T na­tion­als in­clud­ing our em­bassy staff, via CAL in case the sit­u­a­tion wors­ens."

He said the Gov­ern­ment is now check­ing to see if there were any T&T hol­i­day­mak­ers or busi­ness­men vis­it­ing Venezuela. He said he didn't think the sit­u­a­tion was bad enough for the Gov­ern­ment to tell them to cut short their plans and leave Venezuela. How­ev­er, Mooni­lal urged them to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion care­ful­ly and see if they want­ed to re­turn home. He ad­vised them to ex­er­cise pre­cau­tions while in that coun­try.

Mooni­lal said the sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela–sev­en miles across the Gulf from T&T–was get­ting dif­fi­cult and the Gov­ern­ment hoped Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties and the peo­ple would re­solve their mat­ters.He said emer­gency air­lift would de­pend on the num­ber of peo­ple to be re­turned home and avail­abil­i­ty of flights. An as­sess­ment of those in need would be done if the sit­u­a­tion re­quired evac­u­a­tion.

He said act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod has been briefed on the sit­u­a­tion and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who left for Chi­na on Fri­day, was al­so be­ing in­formed.Yes­ter­day, Am­bas­sador Edghill told the T&T Guardian the em­bassy had sought lo­gis­ti­cal sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment but "we al­so have an evac­u­a­tion plan and we're mon­i­tor­ing to see if cer­tain things are trig­gered and if so we'll re­spond."

Edghill, who has been mov­ing around var­i­ous ar­eas to as­cer­tain the sit­u­a­tion, said protests con­tin­ue in pock­ets at cities all over Venezuela. The death toll by yes­ter­day was around ten, he added. Sev­er­al wound­ed in ear­li­er clash­es have died.Deaths in­clud­ed a stu­dent who was "clothes­lined" and al­most de­cap­i­tat­ed when his mo­tor­cy­cle hit a clothes­line strung across a street and his throat was slit by the line.

Yes­ter­day's protests went off rel­a­tive­ly calm­ly how­ev­er, Edghill said. Over the week­end, he said, sev­er­al pro-Maduro demon­stra­tions were mount­ed, first by fe­male sup­port­ers, fol­lowed by se­nior cit­i­zens.

Edghill said em­bassy staff had been keep­ing tabs on T&T na­tion­als work­ing with for­eign firms in Venezuela to en­sure their safe­ty. This in­clud­ed a num­ber of T&T na­tion­als con­tract­ed with Span­ish en­er­gy com­pa­ny Rep­sol oil com­pa­ny. He said they are safe and some had ven­tured out to hot-spot ar­eas to see what was tak­ing place­He said there were al­so 14 T&T na­tion­als work­ing with a Ger­man com­pa­ny west of Cara­cas."They too have been in con­tact with the T&T em­bassy," he added.

Edghill said some T&T na­tion­als were con­sid­er­ing leav­ing Venezuela, but oth­ers were stay­ing. Fur­ther protests con­tin­ue this week, he said.Last week, Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador to T&T Coro­mo­to Godoy ac­cused ex­trem­ist right wingers in Venezuela of an at­tempt­ed coup and of sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia of en­cour­ag­ing it. She al­so ac­cused pri­vate Venezue­lan me­dia of ma­nip­u­lat­ing in­for­ma­tion.

Var­i­ous TT-based Venezue­lans, in­clud­ing Ida Her­nan­dez, Mar­ta Reyes, Yese­nia Gon­za­les and oth­ers de­ny that, blam­ing Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties. Her­nan­dez, who has been res­i­dent in T&T for more than 20 years, said she re­turned to Cara­cas re­cent­ly to car­ry sup­plies for her fam­i­ly in­clud­ing her aunt, who is 100 years old and her un­cle, 106.

She said: "There's no food, no milk, no toi­let pa­per. They have to line up two hours for one mi­graine tablet, it's $5,000 for a car bat­tery and the line for that is miles long. Peo­ple are throw­ing tear-gas and protest­ing all over. I had to take a boat, bus and fer­ry to reach Cara­cas–flights are scarce."Gon­za­les said Venezuela is in civ­il war and peo­ple would soon de­mand new pres­i­den­tial elec­tions.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored