Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment has called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to tone down the dead­ly force rhetoric she used against their coun­try and her crit­i­cism of Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

In a com­mu­nique is­sued yes­ter­day, the Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion de­scribed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sponse as “irate and un­jus­ti­fied.” It said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­ac­tion 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 Maduro gov­ern­ment was re­spond­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s warn­ing to the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment that T&T was off-lim­its and that she would put the Coast Guard on alert to use dead­ly force if any ves­sel from that coun­try sought to ac­cess lo­cal wa­ters il­le­gal­ly. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so made it clear T&T is stand­ing with the Unit­ed States on its poli­cies against the Maduro regime.

Her re­marks fol­lowed claims by Venezuela Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo, who al­leged on his pro­gramme Con El Ma­zo Dan­do that a Trinida­di­an na­tion­al, whom he named as “Guis Kendell Jerome,” had been cap­tured while trav­el­ling to Venezuela with a group la­belled “ter­ror­ists” in an at­tempt to desta­bilise that coun­try’s gov­ern­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the Venezue­lan com­mu­nique, how­ev­er, they had “cap­tured crim­i­nals of Trinida­di­an ori­gin” who con­fessed to the al­leged in­cur­sion. Cara­cas said the men’s state­ments were “du­ly sup­port­ed with com­pelling ev­i­dence.”

The Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment said the ap­pro­pri­ate course of ac­tion would have been a fact-find­ing mis­sion.

“Giv­en the se­ri­ous­ness of this sit­u­a­tion, the ap­pro­pri­ate course of ac­tion is to of­fer co­op­er­a­tion and a will­ing­ness to clar­i­fy the facts. The vir­u­lent and ar­ro­gant stance of the Prime Min­is­ter rais­es se­ri­ous sus­pi­cions of com­plic­i­ty in this in­cur­sion and jeop­ar­dis­es the good co­op­er­a­tive re­la­tions that ex­ist be­tween our coun­tries in key ar­eas.”

It added, “Venezuela urges the au­thor­i­ties of Trinidad and To­ba­go not to be­come en­tan­gled in geopo­lit­i­cal games that run counter to the in­ter­ests of our peo­ples and reaf­firms its com­mit­ment to peace, sov­er­eign­ty and mu­tu­al re­spect, re­mind­ing that any le­git­i­mate con­cern must be ad­dressed through diplo­mat­ic chan­nels, not through threats or un­found­ed state­ments that on­ly serve to es­ca­late ar­ti­fi­cial ten­sions.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Per­sad-Bisses­sar for a re­sponse to the Venezuela mis­sive were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.

Mean­while, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­perts have slammed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s warn­ing to Venezuela.

Pro­fes­sor An­tho­ny Bryan cau­tioned that such rhetoric risks ex­ac­er­bat­ing re­gion­al ten­sions and jeop­ar­dis­ing the coun­try’s diplo­mat­ic stand­ing.

“Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s out­burst, pro­claim­ing that T&T ter­ri­to­ry is off lim­its and that any Venezue­lan ves­sels en­ter­ing T&T will be met with dead­ly force, is in­tem­per­ate, ex­ces­sive, and cre­ates an ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous cir­cum­stance for T&T,” Bryan said.

He un­der­scored the del­i­cate his­to­ry be­tween the two na­tions and em­pha­sised that diplo­ma­cy—not mil­i­tary threats—should guide T&T’s re­sponse to re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues.

“While his­to­ry tells us that sev­er­al Venezue­lan in­sur­rec­tion­ists launched their lib­er­a­tion armies from Trinidad, this is not the time to an­tag­o­nise a neigh­bour of 34 mil­lion per­sons with one of the strongest mil­i­taries in Latin Amer­i­ca,” he warned.

Bryan ques­tioned the qual­i­ty of ad­vice the PM is re­ceiv­ing on mat­ters of for­eign pol­i­cy, say­ing: “Who is ad­vis­ing the PM? The cur­rent For­eign Min­is­ter does not seem to un­der­stand diplo­ma­cy and non-align­ment. Sabre-rat­tling and pub­lic shout­ing does not diplo­ma­cy make, es­pe­cial­ly with a neigh­bour with whom we share mar­itime space and mar­itime bor­der re­sources.”

Mean­while, Pro­fes­sor Andy Knight de­scribed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sponse to Pres­i­dent Maduro’s al­le­ga­tions as a se­ri­ous diplo­mat­ic faux pas.

“The tough stance she’s tak­en seems more like an at­tempt to em­u­late Don­ald Trump than the thought­ful diplo­mat­ic ap­proach we have come to ex­pect from a small is­land state leader in this re­gion,” Knight said.

Pro­fes­sor Knight re­called Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s praise for Maduro dur­ing his first state vis­it to T&T in 2013, and the co-op­er­a­tive re­la­tion­ship they had then. He said her cur­rent re­ac­tion seemed both “undiplo­mat­ic and fool­hardy.”

“In­stead of mak­ing bel­li­cose state­ments and threats, I would en­cour­age the PM to con­sid­er of­fer­ing in­tel­li­gence and de­fence col­lab­o­ra­tion with Venezuela or work­ing with Cari­com IM­PACS to gath­er in­tel­li­gence be­fore re­act­ing. Let’s be re­al­is­tic, Trinidad and To­ba­go doesn’t have the mil­i­tary ca­pa­bil­i­ty to back up the kind of threats the PM has made. This bel­li­cose ap­proach could do more harm than good to re­gion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty.”

Hon­orary se­nior fel­low of the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les, al­so ex­plained that the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties must pro­vide clear ev­i­dence to sub­stan­ti­ate claims that crim­i­nals from T&T en­tered Venezuela with the aim of desta­bil­is­ing the coun­try. He said it was crit­i­cal that cool heads pre­vailed.

“The Venezue­lans have since re­act­ed to what our Prime Min­is­ter has said and it seems to me that they are sug­gest­ing to sit and talk; their re­sponse was very mea­sured and cer­tain­ly this is a mat­ter for diplo­ma­cy. We should sit with the Venezue­lan am­bas­sador and dis­cuss this,” Gon­za­les said, call­ing for a tem­pered ap­proach go­ing for­ward.

“We have a lot of sabre rat­tling and so forth, and there is no need for that, and in the Venezue­lan re­sponse, you can see where they are ton­ing it down, say­ing let’s sit and talk there is no need for war.”

He said it was crit­i­cal to recog­nise that T&T is a small coun­try off the coast of Venezuela and it was crit­i­cal to side­step an an­tag­o­nis­ing re­la­tion­ship go­ing for­ward.