Gail Alexan­der

As ex­ter­nal war drums con­tin­ue with Venezue­lan jets fly­ing over US war­ships and US coun­ter­ing with in­creased stealth air­craft next week, lo­cal sabre rat­tling in­side T&T’s Par­lia­ment may not re­sume un­til lat­er this month, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials say.

When it does, mat­ters ex­ter­nal to T&T- not just re­gion­al­ly - which now hold sway with im­pli­ca­tions for this coun­try, will ul­ti­mate­ly con­front the Par­lia­ment.

T&T’s place among the US-led coali­tion against drug car­tels has cat­a­pult­ed this coun­try in­to in­ter­na­tion­al head­lines, in­clud­ing re­ports that he al­leged drug boat which was de­stroyed by Tues­day’s US mis­sile strike - and which was linked to Venezuela’s ren de Aragua gan - was head­ing to T&T.

With the US and Venezuela at stand-off sta­tus, the is­sue is live with US war­ships’ pres­ence, sub­ma­rine seek­ing nar­co-subs, mis­sion de­tails “dark,” end-date dit­to. Ten­sions con­tin­ue ris­ing amid con­cerns of provo­ca­tion giv­ing way to con­fronta­tion.

Lo­cal in­put’s un­der­way. De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge‘s an­nounce­ment of a new se­cu­ri­ty/bor­der con­trol ini­tia­tive - mon­i­tor­ing move­ments in cer­tain ar­eas to erad­i­cate mem­bers of a re­cent­ly des­ig­nat­ed ter­ror­ist en­ti­ty - is con­firmed as tar­get­ing Tren De Aragua mem­bers.

If UNC PRO Kirk Meighoo un­suc­cess­ful­ly at­tempt­ed to rewrite his­to­ry on oth­er mat­ters, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s im­age has al­so been re­worked fol­low­ing her “Kill them all vi­o­lent­ly” sup­port of the US de­struc­tion of the boat. No longer is she the leader who end­ed each UNC meet­ing pro­fess­ing to love sup­port­ers more than any oth­er leader would.

If spun as a con­tin­u­a­tion of her Op­po­si­tion days “Light Em Up!” style, the PM’s ut­ter­ances run the pub­lic gamut be­tween au­da­cious and in­ju­di­cious. The de­cid­ing fac­tor, how­ev­er, is the UNC’s Gov­ern­ment sta­tus. And hope her “Kill” slo­gan won’t be em­ployed by neg­a­tive el­e­ments.

The US-Venezuela is­sue has af­ford­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar an op­por­tu­ni­ty to por­tray per­son­al strength. But it’s per­ceived as weak­en­ing an in­de­pen­dent T&T. Not on­ly where Cari­com’s con­cerned.

An­tigua/Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne’s made his views clear - even in song. Cari­com lead­ers await a re­sponse to their for­eign min­is­ters’ let­ter to the US on its mil­i­tary moves.

Guyana and Ja­maica were busy head­ing for elec­tion when for­eign min­is­ters dis­cussed the mat­ter last week. Whether T&T’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in that was al­so less ac­tive, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers hasn’t replied.

Elec­tion vic­to­ries by in­cum­bents in Ja­maica and Guyana al­so count. Guyana’s part of the US coali­tion. Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter-elect An­drew Hol­ness was among five Cari­com lead­ers in­vit­ed by US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump to his Flori­da home in 2019, when dis­cus­sions in­clud­ed Venezuela’s sit­u­a­tion.

Op­po­si­tion leader Pen­ny Beck­les’ con­grat­u­la­tions to out­go­ing Cari­com chair­man Hol­ness stressed the need for a uni­fied re­gion­al move­ment - a task now for in­com­ing chair­man Ter­rence Drew.

Both elec­tions hold mes­sages. Low turnouts. Hol­ness’ third win was boost­ed by eco­nom­ic/se­cu­ri­ty strides, ob­tain­ing less seats. Guyana’s rev­enue-rich PPP/C in­creas­ing seats, op­po­si­tion AP­NU dec­i­mat­ed. New WIN, whose bil­lion­aire leader’s sanc­tioned by the US, now be­comes Op­po­si­tion to US-friend­ly PPP/C.

Di­rec­tor of Trade, In­vest­ment and Agri­cul­ture at Guyana’s T&T Con­sulate, for­mer UNC min­is­ter Gan­ga Singh - who’d raised the Lan­date mat­ter - is tipped to be for­malised as T&T’s Con­sul Gen­er­al to Guyana. The po­si­tion was de­layed dur­ing the PNM’s tenure.

Al­so, for T&T, along­side the hemi­spher­ic pic­ture stands im­pli­ca­tions of this week’s geopo­lit­i­cal move­ment in Chi­na - coali­tion­ing among Chi­na, Rus­sia, In­dia, North Ko­rea - with the US’ Coali­tion against Car­tels in the West.

Tues­day’s US torch­ing of the boat was fol­lowed by Wednes­day’s show of mil­i­tary might at Chi­na’s Vic­to­ry Day an­niver­sary. Rus­sia sub­se­quent­ly backed Venezuela and slammed the US mil­i­tary strike. The “war” for new world or­der had un­fold­ed much ear­li­er, mi­nus hard­ware, with the US’ weapon­is­ing of tar­iffs and glob­al re­ac­tions. Now, a coali­tion of su­per­pow­ers looms from the East, fac­ing an Amer­i­ca-First West.

Whether T&T’s a pawn or part­ner, glob­al cur­rents de­mand as­tute states­man­like judge­ment. Be­yond feu­dal war­lord styling or fol­low­ing.

This, not on­ly to en­sure se­cu­ri­ty but T&T’s lifeblood econ­o­my. Rather than head­lin­ing on fear­ful south­ern fish­er­men, north­ern ones avoid­ing the Gulf, what‘s now be­ing called “Kam­la’s Kil­l­zone” and neigh­bours’ non-diplo­mat­ic de­scrip­tions.

If Per­sad-Bisses­sar skipped the In­de­pen­dence prayer event she’d man­dat­ed, it’s ahead if her at­ten­dance (or state­ments) at last night’s Ganesh Ut­sav cel­e­bra­tions urged Lord Ganesh - re­mover of ob­sta­cles - in T&T’s favour.