RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Fish­er­men in Ce­dros say the es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela in Caribbean wa­ters have now led them di­rect­ly in­to the path of pi­rates.

They say in a bid to avoid be­ing caught in the mid­dle of the diplo­mat­ic dan­gers far out at sea, they have been forced to change their rou­tines in or­der to se­cure their liveli­hoods.

At Bonasse Vil­lage, Ce­dros, Guardian Me­dia caught up with a group of fish­er­men who had just re­turned from sea yes­ter­day.

Pran Boodoo said that since the US sent a large naval de­ploy­ment to the south­ern Caribbean to cur­tail drug traf­fick­ing from Venezuela and the re­cent dead­ly strike by the US on a Venezue­lan ves­sel, they’ve been forced to change their routes, opt­ing to fish no fur­ther than three miles from shore.

“We used to go six, sev­en, even eight miles out be­fore, but now most of us stay in the shal­lows. We don’t have a choice, be­cause this is the on­ly way we can earn,” Boodoo said.

Aleem Ali, 22, who has been fish­ing for three years, said de­spite the dan­gers, he has no oth­er al­ter­na­tive but to con­tin­ue.

“I grew up in this. My whole fam­i­ly is fish­er­men, and I don’t have an­oth­er kind of work to turn to,” he said.

But Ali not­ed that stay­ing clos­er to shore does not guar­an­tee safe­ty, as pi­rates have been at­tack­ing them.

At the Fullar­ton fish­ing port, fish­er­man Raeish Ram­dass said he was fish­ing about half a mile from shore when an un­marked pirogue an­chored on his nets.

Ram­dass said he re­treat­ed and called the T&T Coast Guard, with per­son­nel re­spond­ing prompt­ly, forc­ing the pirogue to leave.

“I couldn’t do any­thing un­til the Coast Guard came. I thank them for the fast re­sponse, but it shows the dan­ger is right here,” Ram­dass said.

An­oth­er fish­er­man, Mar­lon Sookoo, said on Sun­day, the Coast Guard forced him to cut his seine while he was drift net fish­ing near the Venezue­lan bor­der.

“They could have let us pick up the nets, but they made us leave it. I lost that net — more than five thou­sand dol­lars. I couldn’t re­cov­er it. That’s just gone,” Sookoo said.

De­spite the risks, Cap­tain Yusuff Ali said he can­not step away from the sea. “I have loans to pay and chil­dren to send to school,” he ex­plained. “This is the on­ly work I know. Even when the price of fish drops, we still have to go out. We can’t live with­out it.”

Fish­er­man Shaz­ime Mo­hammed blamed Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump for the grow­ing ten­sion.

“Blame Trump for that. The US is the biggest dic­ta­tor. They want Venezuela’s oil, and who has to suf­fer? The Ce­dros fish­er­men,” he said.

Mean­while, Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front, Mick­ela Pan­day, vis­it­ed the jet­ty yes­ter­day, not­ing that the Coast Guard was op­er­at­ing with on­ly one pirogue and had no place to re­fu­el. In a video post­ed on Face­book, she de­scribed the peo­ple of the south­west­ern penin­su­la as “sit­ting ducks,” say­ing the Gov­ern­ment must de­vel­op a plan to im­prove se­cu­ri­ty.

How­ev­er, Ce­dros coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh said steps are al­ready be­ing tak­en to im­prove safe­ty, in­clud­ing the in­stal­la­tion of lights along the jet­ty. He said un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, the Ce­dros Se­cu­ri­ty Com­plex was left in dark­ness and the jet­ty in dis­re­pair. Ac­cord­ing to Teelucks­ingh, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Works Min­is­ter Jear­lene John had al­ready start­ed in­stalling se­cu­ri­ty flood­lights, while re­pairs to the jet­ty are al­so be­ing arranged.

“Over the past three months, both MP Ernesto Ke­sar, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der, and the Min­is­ter of De­fence, to­geth­er with my of­fice, brought it to the at­ten­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter. Work has al­ready start­ed, with T&TEC in­stalling light­ing tow­ers im­me­di­ate­ly. We are al­so work­ing with the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port to re­pair this jet­ty, so Coast Guard ves­sels can dock and re­fu­el here in­stead of go­ing all the way to Ch­aguara­mas,” he said.