Whether or not Venezuela Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro is seek­ing to scape­goat Trinidad and To­ba­go for his coun­try’s known vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to ex­ter­nal and in­ter­nal crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, this coun­try has to look af­ter its own in­ter­ests.

If Colom­bian gangs find it fea­si­ble to use T&T to fa­cil­i­tate their op­er­a­tions, what­ev­er their ob­jec­tives be, it is good that af­ter ini­tial­ly deny­ing the al­le­ga­tions of Pres­i­dent Maduro, T&T De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge says his min­istry “is tak­ing im­me­di­ate and de­ci­sive steps to ad­dress the mat­ter with the ut­most se­ri­ous­ness and ur­gency.”

Such in­tend­ed ac­tion is ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary, as there is a long his­to­ry of T&T, be­cause of what may be con­sid­ered its ide­al prox­im­i­ty to the South Amer­i­can main­land, serv­ing as an en­tre­pôt to link crim­i­nal ac­tions of one kind or the oth­er be­tween the two neigh­bours.

One very cyn­i­cal view­point is that Pres­i­dent Maduro’s yet-to-be-sub­stan­ti­at­ed claims may have been fu­elled by a de­sire to re­tal­i­ate against the present Gov­ern­ment of T&T, which has been scathing in its crit­i­cisms of the pol­i­tics and elec­toral ac­tions of the leader of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic. The fact is there are no lim­its to po­lit­i­cal ac­tion tak­en by gov­ern­ments one against the oth­er.

So too it may be sug­gest­ed that the Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent is re­tal­i­at­ing against T&T for the sup­port­ive po­si­tion it has tak­en on the side of its Cari­com neigh­bour, Guyana, against the claims of Pres­i­dent Maduro of a large and po­ten­tial­ly most pro­duc­tive por­tion of the Co­op­er­a­tive Re­pub­lic.

Notwith­stand­ing all of that spec­u­la­tive rea­son­ing, the warn­ing giv­en by crim­i­nol­o­gist Dar­ius Figueira in yes­ter­day’s T&T Guardian, while not con­ced­ing to the “un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed claims,” takes in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the wider is­sue of “our fail­ure to con­trol our bor­ders,” which “is con­tribut­ing to the lit­er­al de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of the se­cu­ri­ty com­plex of the en­tire Caribbean.”

The crim­i­nol­o­gist claims that Colom­bian dons are very ac­tive in the ef­forts to desta­bilise the Maduro gov­ern­ment. Such a con­tention must be con­sid­ered in the wider con­text of the Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent be­ing the tar­get of pow­er­ful coun­tries for his al­leged rig­ging of elec­tions and un­law­ful rule.

What­ev­er the truth and/or fab­ri­ca­tion be­hind Pres­i­dent Maduro’s claims of T&T be­ing used as a base for at­tacks on his gov­ern­ment, the stark re­al­i­ty is that giv­en our porous bor­ders and the con­tin­u­ing fail­ures of suc­ceed­ing T&T gov­ern­ments to en­gage a se­ri­ous ef­fort to counter such a re­al­i­ty, this coun­try re­mains in the sea lanes of in­ter­na­tion­al crime.

The re­al­i­ty must be, es­pe­cial­ly when the breach­ing of T&T’s bor­ders and its in­ter­nal se­cu­ri­ty is at stake, that the Gov­ern­ment must be­come se­ri­ous­ly in­volved in pre­vent­ing fur­ther crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of T&T.

At an­oth­er lev­el, crim­i­nol­o­gist Figueira makes the bold, if not shock­ing claim, that parts of T&T are be­ing used as a hub for ef­forts of “Colom­bian dons as a ma­jor part of the regime change agen­da” in Venezuela.

These are deeply se­ri­ous geopo­lit­i­cal and crim­i­nal is­sues which are fac­ing this coun­try that in­stant de­nials are quite in­suf­fi­cient to cov­er. The re­al­i­ty is that the in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal se­cu­ri­ty of T&T is caught up in this mael­strom of in­ter­na­tion­al crime, po­lit­i­cal and oth­er­wise, with pre­ven­tive and de­fen­sive ac­tion be­ing re­quired.