Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has as­sured To­bag­o­ni­ans that To­ba­go re­mains “a place of peace and a place of love,” even as re­gion­al ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States con­tin­ue to dom­i­nate pub­lic dis­cus­sion.

The as­sur­ances comes just hours af­ter a US Air Force C-17A Globe­mas­ter III land­ed at ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in To­ba­go on Wednes­day morn­ing— a move still gen­er­at­ing ques­tions from both res­i­dents and Au­gus­tine him­self.

Speak­ing at the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty Prayer and Con­se­cra­tion Ser­vice hours lat­er, Au­gus­tine said the is­land must re­main an­chored and uni­fied re­gard­less of ex­ter­nal threats.

“I as­sure you, if we build those walls with God, not even threats from Venezuela would bring those walls down,” he told the gath­er­ing. He said that To­ba­go’s iden­ti­ty has al­ways been root­ed in sta­bil­i­ty and calm, adding, “Grant­ed, To­ba­go is def­i­nite­ly a place of peace and a place of love.”

Au­gus­tine said his mes­sage was not po­lit­i­cal pos­tur­ing but part of a broad­er call for the is­land to stay fo­cused as con­flicts un­fold be­yond its shores.

“We have lost some things as a so­ci­ety,” he said, warn­ing that the is­land must strength­en its foun­da­tions and pro­tect its peo­ple from both in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal pres­sures.