Port-of-Spain

Gre­go­ry An­toine, Mor­vant: Our coun­try is very poor in emer­gency re­spons­es, so we can’t re­al­ly be for or against any gov­ern­ment in Venezuela. We have to re­main neu­tral.

Sta­cy Joseph, Co­corite: We al­ready have an in­flux of Venezue­lans, things are al­ready hard here in Trinidad.

Har­ry Ra­moutar, San Juan: Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro must go. The Venezue­lan peo­ple are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a famine. When Maduro came here and met the Prime Min­is­ter and signed an agree­ment for US$50 mil­lion for food and goods, up to now we don’t know if they got it or not.

The Venezue­lan Op­po­si­tion and peo­ple are fed up and they are march­ing and protest­ing.

Maduro wants to form an al­liance with Rus­sia, Chi­na, Cu­ba, Mex­i­co, and oth­er coun­tries to make it a war. But the US has more say than Venezuela in T&T.

Michael Dar­manie, Beetham: We should help the Venezue­lans, it’s the hu­man­i­tar­i­an thing to do. One nev­er knows when such things would hap­pen per­haps to us here and we would need some sort of cov­er so that we could mi­grate and feel com­fort­able just as we are here.

Yvonne Job, Co­corite: Every­one should come to­geth­er for a so­lu­tion as to what do to. Af­ter all, they’re our clos­est neigh­bours. I like the Venezue­lans, they should try and help them. We should as­sist them un­til they get back on their own feet as we’re go­ing through our own prob­lems.

Ken­rick Al­leyne, San Fer­nan­do: The Venezue­lan is­sues are com­pli­cat­ed. Since the Eu­ro­peans came and took over the place, it’s still in a con­fused state. Chavez tried his best, he did what he could do in his life­time. Maduro, how­ev­er, is a labour leader, he’s not an as­tute politi­cian. Af­ter Chavez’ death, the world has changed and con­tin­ues to change, he should have put strate­gic mea­sures in place to change the sys­tem to have the bil­lions in gold re­serve Venezuela has in for­eign banks re­turned to the coun­try.

Matthew Lee, San Fer­nan­do: Most of the peo­ple in Wood­ford Square are sid­ing with Maduro, he’s the elect­ed pres­i­dent. We’re sup­posed to help them, they’re our neigh­bours. I like the stand the Prime Min­is­ter took, he’s neu­tral and didn’t take any sides.

East-west Cor­ri­dor

Ab­dul Gha­fur, Ch­agua­nas: If the Venezue­lans were com­ing be­fore the sit­u­a­tion es­ca­lat­ed, it is ob­vi­ous they will be com­ing in greater num­bers as the cri­sis wors­ens. We should help them be­cause if the sit­u­a­tion was re­versed, we would like the same thing done to us.

Yvette Munroe, Champs Fleurs: Venezue­lans de­serve favour just as how we mi­grate to oth­er coun­tries and want to set­tle and work hon­est­ly. How­ev­er, some of them have the wrong mo­tives and will do any­thing to get by. Once they want to come and earn an hon­est liv­ing, that’s fine with me.

Sad­hu Mara­jh, Curepe: Here we al­ready have prob­lems like hous­ing, the amount of them at nights they knock­ing at your door, Span­ish or Colom­bian. So Trinida­di­ans will not be able to as­sist too much, though we’re al­ways glad to help, we can’t even help our­selves. It’s like a man sink­ing...

An­tho­ny Mann, Mara­cas St Joseph: We should help the Venezue­lans, every­body has to live. If over there is tough, they have to go where it is a lit­tle eas­i­er.

Bert Sobers, Ari­ma: Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is do­ing the right thing, just like when Ronald Rea­gan was pres­i­dent of the US. He’s help­ing the peo­ple def­i­nite­ly. He’s not talk­ing much but do­ing what he has to do.

South

Gre­go­ry Wy­att, 64, Princes Town: I have no prob­lem with Venezue­lans com­ing in. They are suf­fer­ing so why shouldn't we help them? We need to do more to help them.

Shawn­tel Hunte, 23, La Brea, stu­dent: Yes, I am con­cerned es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to health care. I don't mind they are com­ing here but our gov­ern­ment needs to put bet­ter sys­tems in place to make sure that we are safe and we don't get any virus or dis­eases that they may bring in.

Whit­ney Fran­cois:  The on­ly con­cern I have is about em­ploy­ment. Peo­ple are think­ing about em­ploy­ing the Venezue­lans but what will hap­pen to the Trinida­di­ans who need work too?

Mar­i­lyn Joseph, 45, of Gas­par­il­lo, Cepep work­er: I have a lot of con­cerns. Too many of them are com­ing here. They are tak­ing over our coun­try. They get­ting the em­ploy­ment. Soon no­body (from Trinidad) will get work.

Stephon Ram­saran, 23, Bar­rack­pore, stu­dent: No, I have no prob­lems with the Venezue­lans com­ing here. They don't ha­rass me. We should be able to help them.

Wil­son Manohar, 64, Pe­nal, labour­er: No, I have no prob­lems with the Venezue­lans. They are nice peo­ple. I does trav­el with them in the taxi and they does talk nice. I hear­ing that it's Venezue­lans who kid­nap my fam­i­ly but I don't know if that is true.

East

Na­dine Ray­mond: The in­flux of Venezue­lans can be an eco­nom­ic and so­cial strain on T&T if not prop­er­ly man­aged.

Ra­jku­mar Bha­ga­loo: There will be com­pe­ti­tion for jobs, ladies will take away the men from their wives and bro­ken home will be on the rise. T&T can­not ac­com­mo­date more peo­ple present­ly.

Paul Ma­haraj: There will be a neg­a­tive ef­fect. The share of the pie will be small­er. More mon­ey will have to be spent on our health in­sti­tu­tions and schools. Trinida­di­ans who fail to per­form their jobs es­pe­cial­ly in the su­per­mar­kets will be re­placed by Venezue­lans as is al­ready tak­ing place and al­so in the con­struc­tion in­dus­try.

Nir­mala Per­sad: Yes, things should be put in place as the place will be­come hard­er. Fam­i­ly life will be de­stroyed as the women will be vul­ner­a­ble and will go af­ter mar­ried men and men in gen­er­al. This means more mon­ey be­ing spent on so­cial se­cu­ri­ty. Crime will be on the rise. There will be a call for more hous­es, hos­pi­tals, and schools.

Vin­dra Ma­haraj: There will be hard times for the peo­ple of T&T as the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty will em­ploy the Venezue­lans to work. Trinida­di­ans will have to pull up their socks and per­form their du­ties in the con­struc­tion sec­tor. There will be an in­crease in crime. Some­thing should be done to con­trol the in­flux as it spells dis­as­ter for us.

Na­dine Nanan: Yes, there will be prob­lems as there will be more pi­rates on the sea who will take ad­van­tage of T&T cit­i­zens, more il­le­gal items will come in­to the coun­try. Women look­ing for se­cu­ri­ty will grab on to our men. Fam­i­ly homes will be de­stroyed. There will be eco­nom­ic pres­sure and fight for space. There will be scab labour. More peo­ple be­ing added to our pop­u­la­tion means more mon­ey to build schools, hos­pi­tals, hous­es etc.

Christi­na Chanoo: Yes, Trinidad can bare­ly sup­port it­self and more peo­ple com­ing in­to the coun­try could bring some bur­den on the econ­o­my. We will want to help but must think about our chil­dren and fam­i­ly first as this can lead to harsh eco­nom­ic times and added trou­ble.

To­ba­go

Joshua Rhodes: What­ev­er hap­pens in Venezuela with­in the next few days is def­i­nite­ly go­ing to

af­fect us, so I am con­cerned. As it re­lates to the in­flux of refugees, I'm not wor­ried be­cause when they come here, they do the jobs we are too proud to do be­cause we don’t know to suf­fer as they do.

Reynold Ed­wards: Be­cause of our re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela it's go­ing to def­i­nite­ly af­fect us.

The Gov­ern­ment needs to do more to stop all the Venezue­lans from com­ing in­to the coun­try, so we hope that the sit­u­a­tion there could be sta­bilised.

Melanie Roberts: I'm def­i­nite­ly con­cerned about the Venezue­lan cri­sis. Should the worst hap­pen, a lot of peo­ple would be search­ing for refuge even more than we have now. And while I sym­pa­thise with them, we have to ask if we have the nec­es­sary sys­tems in place as it re­lates to jobs, so­cial and health care ser­vices to deal with an in­flux of peo­ple.

El­la-mae McKen­na Math­ews: I am very wor­ried. We al­ready have some Venezue­lans here and we are hear­ing about them tak­ing up jobs be­cause they are will­ing to work for less mon­ey. We are hear­ing about pros­ti­tu­tion, that is def­i­nite­ly not good. If we have too many of them it would cre­ate more prob­lems than we al­ready have.

Claude An­tho­ny: The Venezue­lans need help, we have agree­ments with them to trade oil and be­cause we are all God’s chil­dren we should help them. We are too close to not help if we can.

Tom­my Roberts: I'm def­i­nite­ly con­cerned war on our bor­ders is a se­ri­ous thing. We are too close to

Venezuela to not be con­cerned about not feel­ing the ef­fects of any kind of mil­i­tary ac­tion.

Agnes Gib­son: I don’t think we should be in­volved in any way. We have so many so­cial prob­lems here—un­em­ploy­ment, drugs, crime, we could bare­ly man­age our own af­fairs. We have neigh­bours liv­ing right next to us that need help, fix those neigh­bours first be­fore we fix neigh­bours across the sea.

Com­piled by Rad­hi­ca De Silve, Charles Kong Soo, Loyce Vin­cent, Ralph Ban­warie and Kris­t­ian De Sil­va.