DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

For­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne has called on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment to adopt a calm and diplo­mat­ic ap­proach to de-es­ca­late ris­ing ten­sions with Venezuela.

His ap­peal came hours af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a stern warn­ing to Venezuela Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro that dead­ly force would be used against any ves­sel en­ter­ing this coun­try il­le­gal­ly via Venezue­lan wa­ters.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s re­marks fol­lowed claims by Venezuela’s In­te­ri­or Min­is­ter, Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo, that a T&T na­tion­al, iden­ti­fied as “Gis Kendel Jheron,” had been de­tained in con­nec­tion with al­leged “ter­ror­ist ac­tiv­i­ties” af­ter be­ing ap­pre­hend­ed while at­tempt­ing to ac­cess Venezuela from T&T wa­ters.

Re­spond­ing at Thurs­day's post-Cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ence, Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a sharp warn­ing to the Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“To­day, I want to make it very clear to the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment and of­fi­cials that they can do what­ev­er they want on Venezue­lan ter­ri­to­ry, but they can­not come here. T&T ter­ri­to­ry is off lim­its to them. If Mr Ca­bel­lo’s com­ments are a veiled threat to en­ter T&T ter­ri­to­ry they should re­con­sid­er any such in­ten­tion,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She al­so in­di­cat­ed her in­ten­tion to con­sult with the De­fence Min­is­ter and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al on the le­gal frame­work to au­tho­rise the T&T Coast Guard to use dead­ly force against any unau­tho­rised ves­sel en­ter­ing na­tion­al wa­ters.

“T&T is off lim­its to them,” she em­pha­sised, re­it­er­at­ing con­cerns over al­leged smug­gling and po­ten­tial para­mil­i­tary in­fil­tra­tion.

Yes­ter­day, the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment re­spond­ed by ac­cus­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar of is­su­ing an “an­gry and un­jus­ti­fied” re­sponse to its con­cerns about so-called "ter­ror­ists" orig­i­nat­ing in T&T.

In an of­fi­cial com­mu­nique, the Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­ac­tion raised “se­ri­ous sus­pi­cions of com­plic­i­ty” in the al­leged in­cur­sion and could dam­age co­op­er­a­tion be­tween both coun­tries.

“The Prime Min­is­ter’s vir­u­lent and high-hand­ed at­ti­tude rais­es se­ri­ous sus­pi­cions of com­plic­i­ty... and un­der­mines the good co­op­er­a­tive re­la­tions be­tween our coun­tries in key ar­eas,” the state­ment said.

The state­ment said Maduro made a “le­git­i­mate” com­plaint, adding that not on­ly were sev­er­al Trinida­di­an na­tion­als de­tained but that they had "con­fessed" to their plans.

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue, Dr Browne warned that in­flam­ma­to­ry rhetoric could fur­ther desta­bilise an al­ready frag­ile diplo­mat­ic sit­u­a­tion.

“It is in our sov­er­eign na­tion­al in­ter­est [to] avoid en­gag­ing in any cy­cle of rhetoric that es­ca­lates ten­sion. Why on Earth has the Gov­ern­ment not met with the Am­bas­sador of Venezuela for a frank dis­cus­sion and clar­i­fi­ca­tion of the po­si­tions and un­der­stand­ing of both sides? He is based right here in Port-of-Spain. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion with a neigh­bour­ing state via me­dia con­fer­ence rhetoric should nev­er be a first re­sort. It would be ir­re­spon­si­ble of the Gov­ern­ment for this week to end with­out it ini­ti­at­ing such di­rect di­a­logue,” he warned.

Browne added that the Op­po­si­tion was be­ing care­ful not to con­tribute to an al­ready “high­ly sen­si­tive” en­vi­ron­ment with state­ments that could in­flame the sit­u­a­tion.

He stressed that se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions, es­pe­cial­ly those in­volv­ing ter­ror­ism and cross-bor­der ac­tiv­i­ties, must be ad­dressed prompt­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.

“Any state mak­ing ob­ser­va­tions and al­le­ga­tions of a ter­ror­ist in­cur­sion orig­i­nat­ing in a neigh­bour­ing state and in­volv­ing any al­leged par­tic­i­pa­tion of one or more na­tion­als from that neigh­bour­ing state must be treat­ed with di­rect­ly, ur­gent­ly, and re­spon­si­bly,” Browne said.

“There must be no re­course to mega­phone en­gage­ment but rather swift out­reach and di­rect en­gage­ment on the part of Trinidad and To­ba­go via our well-es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty chan­nels. The pru­dent im­me­di­ate re­sponse on our part would have been to have ini­ti­at­ed im­me­di­ate out­reach via the Am­bas­sador of Venezuela in Port-of-Spain and like­wise via our Em­bassy in Cara­cas. The Min­is­ters of De­fence and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty would al­so ur­gent­ly en­gage in rel­e­vant dis­cus­sions with their coun­ter­parts across the bor­der.”

Browne high­light­ed the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing func­tion­al and peace­ful re­la­tions across the shared mar­itime bor­der.

He warned that hos­tile ex­changes could im­pact vi­tal sec­tors such as fish­ing, ma­rine com­merce, en­er­gy, and joint se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions in the Gulf of Paria and sur­round­ing ar­eas.

“Such an ap­proach would con­tin­ue to pru­dent­ly serve the best in­ter­est of our fish­er­men, our recre­ation­al and com­mer­cial ma­rine sec­tors, our en­er­gy sec­tor, our search and res­cue col­lab­o­ra­tions and im­por­tant­ly, all counter-nar­cotics, counter-smug­gling, and counter-traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tions in the Gulf of Paria and be­yond. It is in our in­ter­est to en­gage in pru­dent diplo­ma­cy as op­posed to sabre rat­tling and name-call­ing.”

IR ex­pert on es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions

Mean­while, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Pro­fes­sor Andy Knight is call­ing on Maduro to present cred­i­ble ev­i­dence sup­port­ing his claim that a group of armed para­mil­i­tary ter­ror­ists at­tempt­ed to en­ter Venezuela via T&T.

Knight al­so urged Cari­com and its re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty agency, the Im­ple­men­ta­tion Agency for Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty (IM­PACS), to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion close­ly, warn­ing of po­ten­tial im­pli­ca­tions for re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty and diplo­ma­cy.

Ac­cord­ing to Knight, the claim rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions: How did the al­leged op­er­a­tives en­ter T&T? Who pro­vid­ed them with weapons? And was there any in­volve­ment by the Unit­ed States?

Knight cau­tioned that the is­sue, if ver­i­fied, could have far-reach­ing con­se­quences.

“If Maduro can pro­duce cred­i­ble ev­i­dence to sup­port his as­ser­tion, the new­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go should be con­cerned about the im­pli­ca­tions of this al­leged in­ci­dent. The Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Min­istry has al­ready re­ject­ed Maduro's claim, but if true, it could mean an in­crease in in­sta­bil­i­ty and vi­o­lence in the re­gion,” Knight said.

“So far, there has been no in­di­ca­tion of con­cern from Cari­com or IM­PACS. It is now up to Maduro to pro­vide clear ev­i­dence to sup­port his claim.”

Knight not­ed that the sit­u­a­tion could in­di­rect­ly im­pli­cate T&T and asked sev­er­al point­ed ques­tions: “How did these in­di­vid­u­als en­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go? Why was the coun­try used as a launch­ing pad for their al­leged ne­far­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties? Who pro­vid­ed the ‘war-grade weapons’ found in their pos­ses­sion? Was this at­tempt­ed in­va­sion a dress re­hearsal for a mil­i­tary coup to top­ple the Maduro regime, and was the US in­volved in any way?”

He al­so ref­er­enced past at­tempts to desta­bilise the Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion, cit­ing the failed Op­eración Gedeón in May 2020, which in­volved Venezue­lan ex­pa­tri­ates and a pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny, Sil­ver­corp USA.

“These ques­tions are cru­cial, es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing Maduro's long-stand­ing com­plaints about far-right fas­cists, en­abled by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, at­tempt­ing to desta­bilise Venezuela. The failed Op­eración Gedeón in May 2020, which in­volved Venezue­lan ex­pa­tri­ates and a pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firm, Sil­ver­corp USA, lends cre­dence to Maduro's claims.”