Gail Alexan­der

T&T’s Am­bas­sador to Venezuela Ed­mund Dil­lon and all staff mem­bers at the Cara­cas Em­bassy are safe amid wide­spread protests in the wake of that coun­try’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day.

Protests erupt­ed in Venezuela af­ter the elec­tion, which gave in­cum­bent Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro a third year in of­fice by Venezuela’s Na­tion­al Elec­toral Coun­cil.

Pro­test­ers claimed the re­sults and polls were rigged and Venezue­lan’s op­po­si­tion in­stead said it clinched a “land­slide” vic­to­ry.
Maduro’s ad­min­is­tra­tion has con­demned the protests, la­belling them as an at­tempt­ed “coup.”

Yes­ter­day, it was re­port­ed by news agen­cies that more pro­test­ers were com­ing out de­mand­ing Maduro ac­knowl­edge he lost the elec­tion. Po­lice and pro­tes­tors have clashed. At least 11 peo­ple were re­port­ed dead up to yes­ter­day.

T&T’s em­bassy is lo­cat­ed in Cara­cas, where protests are oc­cur­ring.

Dil­lon has been High Com­mis­sion­er there since 2021. He is said to be safe.

Yes­ter­day, US Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Luiz Ina­cio Lu­la da Sil­va urged Venezuela to re­lease de­tailed vot­ing da­ta.

Mean­while, for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter in the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, Kevin Ram­nar­ine, urged this coun­try’s Gov­ern­ment to pay at­ten­tion to what is tak­ing place in Venezuela.

“The sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela is at cri­sis lev­el, with peo­ple protest­ing against what they see as a rigged re­sult. What hap­pens in Venezuela is of con­se­quence to us in T&T be­cause of the nat­ur­al gas deals for Drag­on and Couci­na-Man­akin, which the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion has pur­sued since 2016.

“As I’ve said be­fore, these projects are sub­ject to high po­lit­i­cal risk re­lat­ed to not on­ly what is un­fold­ing in Venezuela but what the USA will do. The state­ment on X from Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris and the state­ment by Sec­re­tary An­tho­ny Blinken in­di­cate that the US gov­ern­ment is deeply con­cerned about Venezuela.”

He added, “The two gas deals signed with Venezuela in the sev­en or eight months on­ly hap­pened be­cause the US gov­ern­ment gave an OFAC li­cence to ex­empt these arrange­ments from sanc­tions. I am sure the in­vestors, Shell and BP, will be con­cerned at what they see next door. How­ev­er, we need the nat­ur­al gas and Venezuela has a lot of it near to us but it comes with a lot of risk and un­cer­tain­ty. We al­so don’t know what the US will do go­ing for­ward re­gard­ing sanc­tions and there is a US elec­tion in the US in No­vem­ber hat could see a change in pow­er. That’s al­so an­oth­er mov­ing part.”

He al­so said any fur­ther un­rest in Venezuela could lead to an in­flux of mi­grants in T&T.

“There might be an­oth­er wave of Venezue­lans ar­riv­ing in Trinidad in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture. What are the con­se­quences of that for T&T? We must keep a close eye on how things un­fold next door. His­to­ry teach­es us that unchecked im­mi­gra­tion, if not prop­er­ly man­aged, can have neg­a­tive con­se­quences for na­tions.”