Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge says there is noth­ing to wor­ry about re­gard­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela, hours af­ter the Unit­ed States car­ried out an op­er­a­tion in the South Amer­i­can coun­try and cap­tured Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro, his wife, and son.

Sturge said con­cerns were mis­placed, par­tic­u­lar­ly as Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez has agreed to co­op­er­ate.

“I do not be­lieve cit­i­zens are wor­ried as there is noth­ing to wor­ry about, par­tic­u­lar­ly as Del­cy Ro­driguez has agreed to co­op­er­ate ... I be­lieve that those with an agen­da are en­gag­ing in fear-mon­ger­ing, as things didn’t pan out as they had hoped. We are not at war with Venezuela,” he said in a What­sApp ex­change with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Mean­while, yes­ter­day, sev­er­al bar­ri­ers were placed along streets in Port-of-Spain close to the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing and oth­er state of­fices. Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro stat­ed that the au­thor­i­ties were close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela and were pre­pared to keep the pub­lic in­formed as events pro­gressed.

“When your neigh­bour’s house is on fire, the pru­dent thing is to wet yours,” Gue­var­ro said.

In a me­dia re­lease, Gue­var­ro said the Po­lice had al­ready im­ple­ment­ed a se­ries of pre­cau­tion­ary op­er­a­tional mea­sures to en­sure the con­tin­ued safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the na­tion.

How­ev­er, he said there was no need for the pub­lic to pan­ic as the height­ened se­cu­ri­ty pos­ture formed part of its on­go­ing com­mit­ment to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“There is no need for pub­lic alarm as these mea­sures are de­signed to en­sure readi­ness, sta­bil­i­ty, and con­ti­nu­ity of ser­vice should cir­cum­stances evolve. Cit­i­zens are en­cour­aged to re­main calm, stay in­formed through of­fi­cial chan­nels, and re­port any sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty to the po­lice,” the re­lease said.

How­ev­er, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­sor and for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Gary Grif­fith stat­ed that this is not a polic­ing mat­ter, and that clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion was need­ed from those head­ing the De­fence Force, Coast Guard, and Air Guard.

“Well, it’s def­i­nite­ly not a polic­ing mat­ter...What is re­quired is more from a mil­i­tary per­spec­tive and a po­lit­i­cal per­spec­tive. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, we have not heard any state­ment by the gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said in a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia.

How­ev­er, he said he’s not plac­ing blame on any­one, as he con­fi­dent­ly be­lieves this has not been done be­cause the Gov­ern­ment lacked some­one with se­nior mil­i­tary train­ing or ex­pe­ri­ence to ex­plain how to deal with the sit­u­a­tion.

And re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah said that giv­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ge­o­graph­ic prox­im­i­ty, en­er­gy in­ter­de­pen­dence, and ex­ist­ing mi­gra­tion and se­cu­ri­ty ex­po­sure, it would be pru­dent to as­sess and pre­pare for a range of short- to medi­um-term im­pli­ca­tions.

In a six-point ad­vi­so­ry, Heer­ah said T&T was not a by­stander in the con­flict, warn­ing that ge­og­ra­phy alone en­sures ex­po­sure, even if there was no im­me­di­ate threat.

On bor­der and mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty pres­sures, Heer­ah said in­sta­bil­i­ty in Venezuela could in­crease ir­reg­u­lar mar­itime ac­tiv­i­ty. On mi­gra­tion and hu­man­i­tar­i­an risk, he said a sud­den po­lit­i­cal or se­cu­ri­ty rup­ture in Venezuela could trig­ger re­newed pop­u­la­tion dis­place­ment.

The re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert ex­plained that pe­ri­ods of re­gion­al in­sta­bil­i­ty his­tor­i­cal­ly cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ty win­dows for transna­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works. These groups adapt faster than states and may shift traf­fick­ing routes through south­ern Caribbean cor­ri­dors.

He said po­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty or pro­longed in­sta­bil­i­ty could de­lay or de­rail cross-bor­der en­er­gy projects, af­fect in­vestor con­fi­dence, and in­tro­duce volatil­i­ty in­to sup­ply and rev­enue plan­ning.

Heer­ah said height­ened re­gion­al ten­sion can fu­el mis­in­for­ma­tion, fear, and po­lit­i­cal ex­ploita­tion, and that T&T will face in­creas­ing pres­sure to bal­ance its strate­gic re­la­tion­ship with the Unit­ed States and Cari­com’s long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.