Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Faced with an in­crease in hu­man traf­fick­ing in the wake of Venezuela's so­cial un­rest, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon wants co-or­di­nat­ed pa­trols be­tween Venezuela's Guardia Na­cional and the T&T Coast Guard.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter tour­ing the Ce­dros port in the south­west­ern penin­su­la yes­ter­day, Dil­lon said Venezuela's cri­sis had trig­gered an up­surge in for­eign na­tion­als en­ter­ing Trinidad through the ports of Ch­aguara­mas, Ce­dros and King's Wharf, San Fer­nan­do.

He re­vealed that a com­mand­ing of­fi­cer of the Venezue­lan Guardia de Na­cional had ar­rived in Trinidad on Mon­day to en­gage in high lev­el se­cu­ri­ty talks with the com­man­ders of the T&T Coast Guard.

"He will be here un­til Fri­day and part of the dis­cus­sion is how do we co-op­er­ate with one an­oth­er in pa­trolling the Gulf of Paria," Dil­lon said.

Say­ing it was im­por­tant to have co-or­di­nat­ed pa­trols to stamp out il­le­gal drug traf­fick­ing, gun run­ning, con­tra­band smug­gling and hu­man traf­fick­ing, Dil­lon said he was hop­ing that T&T Coast Guard of­fi­cers could be sent to pa­trol on the Guardia de Na­cional ships, while Venezue­lan of­fi­cers can board T&T Coast Guard ships.

Once joint pa­trols with the Guardia Na­cional be­gin, Dil­lon said "T&T Coast Guard will pa­trol from north to south and they will pa­trol south to north."He al­so said part of the dis­cus­sion in­volved the launch of a pro­gramme, called Ven­Tri�Venezuela and Trinidad co-op­er­a­tion, which is planned for Au­gust this year.

Asked whether he be­lieved the law en­force­ment bod­ies had enough re­sources to tack­le il­le­gal en­try through T&T's porous coastal bor­ders, Dil­lon ad­mit­ted that more was need­ed.

"I am not sat­is­fied that the Coast Guard has enough as­sets to deal with the in­flux of Venezue­lan na­tion­als. I think the Coast Guard needs ad­di­tion­al re­sources," Dil­lon said.He added that a ma­jor chal­lenge at the Ce­dros port was the shal­low har­bour sit­u­at­ed around the jet­ty, which does not fa­cil­i­tate the dock­ing of large ves­sels.

Dil­lon al­so said a Damen "moth­er ship" is sta­tioned off the Ce­dros port and has the ca­pa­bil­i­ty of de­ploy­ing a fast speed in­ter­cep­tor or a speed launch ves­sel.Joint land pa­trols among Im­mi­gra­tion, po­lice, Cus­toms and Coast Guard crews were al­so in­creased, Dil­lon said.

"In terms of the il­le­gal move­ment of peo­ple, guns, am­mu­ni­tion, this is where the mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty en­vi­ron­ment comes in. It is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant and the Coast Guard has been in­creas­ing our land based pa­trols, so there is a co-or­di­nat­ed joint pa­trol on the land and to some ex­tent at sea," Dil­lon said.

Such pa­trols have been on­go­ing at Ce­dros, Quinam, Blan­chisseuse, Moru­ga, Erin and To­co, he added.Say­ing Trinidad is just sev­en miles away from Venezuela, Dil­lon not­ed that there had al­ways been move­ment of peo­ple and com­modi­ties be­tween Venezuela and Ce­dros.

"That has al­ways been our his­to­ry but we have in­ten­si­fied our pa­trols both in the sea and on the land to pre­vent as much as pos­si­ble il­le­gal en­try in the coun­try," he con­tend­ed.

Dur­ing the tour Dil­lon chat­ted with sev­er­al Venezue­lans who were seen leav­ing Trinidad with box­es of toi­let pa­per, ba­by milk, di­a­pers, sug­ar, toma­to ketchup and oil. Raphael Mar­cano, of Tu­cu­pi­ta, said it cost 80,500 Bo­li­vares to get to Trinidad. He said ba­sic food items were in short sup­ply and many peo­ple were suf­fer­ing.