Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is giv­ing a firm as­sur­ance that Trinidad and To­ba­go will not be used by the US to launch any at­tacks against the peo­ple of Venezuela.

The Prime Min­is­ter yes­ter­day re­spond­ed to a sting­ing “broad­side” cri­tique from for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who slammed her han­dling of this coun­try’s po­si­tion in the Unit­ed States and Venezuela ten­sions. Dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at his Glen­coe home, Row­ley raised con­cerns, crit­i­cisms, queries and ob­ser­va­tions on the on­go­ing sit­u­a­tion.

Act­ing For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John al­so took a turn at Row­ley.

When asked for her re­ac­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Row­ley’s me­dia brief­ing was noth­ing to be con­cerned about. “As a cit­i­zen, he has a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right to ex­press his opin­ions. How­ev­er, the facts re­main,” she stressed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Row­ley, while en­tranced with for­mer am­bas­sador (Can­dace) Bond, signed an up­dat­ed SO­FA last year, which re­quires Trinidad and To­ba­go to co­op­er­ate with the US mil­i­tary in their train­ing ex­er­cis­es in the re­gion.”

Giv­en the ar­rival of the USS Ger­ald R Ford in the Caribbean Sea and the US Marines ar­riv­ing in this coun­try for train­ing ex­er­cis­es with the T&T De­fence Force, the Prime Min­is­ter sought to al­lay fears about any mil­i­tary ac­tion against Venezuela from T&T soil.

“The US has NEV­ER re­quest­ed use of our ter­ri­to­ry to launch any at­tacks against the peo­ple of Venezuela. Trinidad and To­ba­go ter­ri­to­ry will NOT be used to launch any at­tacks against the peo­ple of Venezuela. Trinidad and To­ba­go is a sov­er­eign state and does not blind­ly fol­low the US or any bloc such as Cari­com.

“Our for­eign pol­i­cy is Trinidad and To­ba­go first. As Lord Palmer­ston said, ‘We have no eter­nal al­lies, and we have no per­pet­u­al en­e­mies. Our in­ter­ests are eter­nal and per­pet­u­al, and those in­ter­ests it is our du­ty to fol­low,’” she added.

But she said, “Trinidad and To­ba­go has suf­fered tremen­dous­ly un­der the weight of drug and gun traf­fick­ing. My Gov­ern­ment will not shy away from sup­port­ing in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners who are com­mit­ted to con­fronting this plague head-on.”

How­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter in­sist­ed, “Trinidad and To­ba­go will NOT par­tic­i­pate in any act that will bring harm to the Venezue­lan peo­ple. We con­tin­ue to have peace­ful re­la­tions with the peo­ple of Venezuela.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment sup­ports the se­lec­tion of lead­ers through free and fair de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions. Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens and in­fra­struc­ture are NOT at risk as we are NOT par­tic­i­pants in any ag­gres­sion against the peo­ple of Venezuela.”

‘Row­ley seek­ing at­ten­tion’ – Padarath, John

Mean­while, Padarath said Row­ley’s “rant” raised noth­ing new.

He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar “has been the most vo­cal and vis­i­ble mem­ber of the Gov­ern­ment in ad­dress­ing our bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions with both the US and Venezuela.”

“We have no in­ten­tion of be­ing drawn in­to any lacaray and bac­cha­nal par­rot­ed by the for­mer prime min­is­ter. But we un­der­stand ‘tis the sea­son, but my ad­vice to him is to take his own ad­vice, ‘drink your rum and get out of our face’. Row­ley clear­ly has too much time on his hands; he’s look­ing for a po­lit­i­cal come­back.”

Padarath added, “He’s hope­ful that the poor lead­er­ship of the PNM by the Op­po­si­tion Leader would pro­vide him and his prox­ies with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to gain po­lit­i­cal cur­ren­cy.”

Padarath said, “Row­ley didn’t raise any con­cerns about sov­er­eign­ty when he signed Trinidad and To­ba­go on­to the SO­FA agree­ment un­der his ad­min­is­tra­tion. The cur­rent UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion hasn’t amend­ed the agree­ment. We’ve been very clear about our po­si­tion on the US pres­ence in the south­ern Caribbean and our part­ner­ship with them. We refuse to be lec­tured by a man who over­saw the high­est mur­der rates in our coun­try with­out lift­ing a fin­ger to change that tra­jec­to­ry. There’s no ques­tion about giv­ing up Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sov­er­eign­ty; this is pure mis­chief.”

Works Min­is­ter John added, “Row­ley has no rel­e­vance! Why doesn’t he find a hob­by?!”

“He’s gone! He was vot­ed out of of­fice; we beat him to a fraz­zle! He needs to go away and do some­thing and re­lax. No­body has time with Row­ley.”