Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Dr Amery Browne, has warned that the on­go­ing es­ca­la­tion of ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States is be­gin­ning to take a toll on cit­i­zens’ men­tal health.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day out­side Par­lia­ment, Browne said the lack of trans­paren­cy and clear diplo­mat­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion sur­round­ing re­cent de­vel­op­ments has cre­at­ed wide­spread un­ease, adding: “The fear of a po­ten­tial con­flict emerg­ing is feed­ing in­to a sense of anx­i­ety and trep­i­da­tion among the pop­u­la­tion.”

“There must be con­cern. We are al­so con­cerned about the men­tal health of a num­ber of our cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly our old­er cit­i­zens. De­spite the blasé refu­ta­tions of our Prime Min­is­ter, this sit­u­a­tion is very, very con­cern­ing. Some of them are quite ter­ri­fied, and it would help if there were greater trans­paren­cy,” he said.

On Sun­day, the USS Grave­ly docked in the cap­i­tal as the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion boosts mil­i­tary pres­sure on neigh­bour­ing Venezuela and its Pres­i­dent, Nicolás Maduro.

Venezuela de­scribed the im­pend­ing mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es in this coun­try’s wa­ters as threat to the Caribbean re­gion and a “hos­tile provo­ca­tion” to­ward the South Amer­i­can na­tion.

Browne not­ed that while geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions of­ten ap­pear dis­tant, their psy­cho­log­i­cal im­pact can be deeply felt at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el.

“It would help if the Prime Min­is­ter, as the Prime Min­is­ter of Bar­ba­dos and oth­ers have done, con­nect­ed with the peo­ple, spoke to them trans­par­ent­ly, al­lowed me­dia ques­tions, and aired out the is­sue for the pop­u­la­tion, be­cause many don’t un­der­stand. They are look­ing at a few small boats be­ing blown up, mis­sile de­stroy­ers, and nu­clear-pow­ered sub­marines, and that ap­pears to be a mis­match. Many peo­ple can be for­giv­en for mak­ing a di­rect con­nec­tion be­tween that mo­bil­i­sa­tion and a regime-change agen­da,” Browne said.

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi said that while it is nei­ther new nor un­usu­al for US mil­i­tary ves­sels or as­sets to be present with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters, the glob­al sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the is­sue re­quires mea­sured lead­er­ship and trans­paren­cy.

Al-Rawi sug­gest­ed that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar hold a na­tion­al press con­fer­ence to ad­dress cit­i­zens di­rect­ly.

“There is an ur­gent need for her to ad­dress the pop­u­la­tion via the me­dia, ques­tion-and-an­swer time, to deal with what is nor­mal, what is con­jec­ture, and what is not. It would be ir­re­spon­si­ble of any­one to point out the need for any­thing oth­er than in­for­ma­tion in an or­gan­ised, trans­par­ent process,” he said.

Both Browne and Al-Rawi un­der­scored the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing open lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and diplo­ma­cy as re­gion­al ten­sions con­tin­ue to evolve.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­cent state­ment from the Gov­ern­ment, the USS Grave­ly’s vis­it to T&T is aimed at bol­ster­ing the fight against transna­tion­al crime and build re­silience through train­ing, hu­man­i­tar­i­an ac­tiv­i­ties, and se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion.