Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

One week af­ter two Trinida­di­an men were killed in a US mil­i­tary airstrike off the coast of Venezuela, res­i­dents and fish­er­folk in Ica­cos say that while there is some un­ease, dai­ly life has large­ly re­turned to nor­mal as they con­tin­ue to ven­ture out to sea.

Last Tues­day, Chad “Char­po” Joseph and Rishi Sama­roo were killed in what US of­fi­cials de­scribed as a “lethal ki­net­ic strike”. US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump lat­er con­firmed the at­tack on so­cial me­dia, claim­ing in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ed the ves­sel was car­ry­ing il­le­gal nar­cotics linked to “nar­coter­ror­ist net­works”.

Joseph’s rel­a­tives, how­ev­er, strong­ly de­nied the al­le­ga­tions, call­ing the in­ci­dent “an act of wicked­ness”.

On Sun­day, the US Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain an­nounced on its of­fi­cial Face­book page that it had en­tered a “height­ened state of alert”, ad­vis­ing US cit­i­zens to avoid vis­it­ing the em­bassy over the Di­vali week­end. No fur­ther de­tails were pro­vid­ed, and it was un­clear whether the alert was re­lat­ed to on­go­ing US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in the re­gion.

De­spite the in­ter­na­tion­al ten­sions, sev­er­al Ica­cos vil­lagers told Guardian Me­dia that the strike and mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty have not sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect­ed their rou­tines.

Fish­er­man Dar­ius Dipchan said there has been no drop in the num­ber of boats go­ing out to sea, though some fish­er­men are now more cau­tious.

“They’re a lit­tle scep­ti­cal to go out to sea be­cause any lit­tle thing fly­ing around makes them ner­vous,” he said. “Their lives at stake out there now.”

Dipchan, a life­long fish­er­man, said op­er­a­tions in the Gulf re­main most­ly safe and rou­tine, as most ves­sels stay with­in lo­cal fish­ing zones.

“The dis­tance those guys were op­er­at­ing—around Sol­da­do Rock—is be­yond our nor­mal zone. If you don’t check in with the T&T Coast Guard, they’ll give you trou­ble. So usu­al­ly we pull up to the Coast Guard, let them know who we are and what we’re do­ing to avoid any con­fronta­tion,” he said.

Re­fer­ring to the US Em­bassy’s alert, Dipchan said it was un­der­stand­able.

“Right now, they have to be on high alert be­cause any­thing con­cern­ing the US could be a tar­get. And as a small coun­try, one mis­sile and we’re out one time,” he said.

Sev­en­ty-five-year-old Al­fred John Williams, who runs a small co­conut oil busi­ness near the Ica­cos beach­front, said the com­mu­ni­ty re­mains large­ly un­af­fect­ed.

“It’s not un­easy for me. It’s just an­oth­er day,” he said. “Maybe the fish­er­men are a lit­tle scared, but the rest of the com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to move on with their lives. There’s no drug thing go­ing on here, no con­tra­band pass­ing through, so we have noth­ing to be afraid of.”

How­ev­er, Williams not­ed a no­tice­able de­cline in the num­ber of Venezue­lans com­ing through the area since the start of US mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es.

“Be­fore, they used to have a lit­tle hus­tle with co­conuts and things, but the hus­tle got tough. These last rounds, they haven’t been com­ing. The en­tire vil­lage is slow be­cause every­thing is slow—they aren’t com­ing and go­ing as be­fore,” he said.

Ica­cos, lo­cat­ed just 11 kilo­me­tres from Venezuela and clos­er to that coun­try than to Port of Spain, has long seen cross-bor­der move­ment be­tween lo­cals and Venezue­lans. On Mon­day, sev­er­al Venezue­lan fam­i­lies were seen near the beach, liv­ing in small sheds and huts along the coast.

One fish­er­man, who asked not to be named, said the mi­gra­tion flow be­tween the two coun­tries has ex­ist­ed for decades. “They work along­side lo­cals and even mar­ry Trinida­di­ans. It’s noth­ing new,” he said.

Con­cerns over mi­gra­tion

Res­i­dent Han­iff Mo­hammed told Guardian Me­dia that the ar­rival of Venezue­lans con­tin­ues de­spite the re­gion­al mil­i­tary pres­ence, and he fears it could im­pact lo­cals’ liveli­hoods.

“They go­ing and com­ing as usu­al. I’m not wor­ried about any war,” he said. “I’m wor­ried about the Span­ish com­ing in here in large num­bers.”

Mean­while, Ce­dros coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh said Coast Guard ad­vi­sories have re­as­sured fish­er­men to re­main with­in their safe zones.

He con­firmed re­ports that US air­craft have been spot­ted pa­trolling the area, but said this has not caused pan­ic.

“This gives a sense of con­fi­dence to our lo­cal fish­er­men at sea,” he said. “It’s not alarm­ing. We’re not privy to what the US is do­ing or what’s cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia, which we can­not con­firm. From my of­fice, no one is over­ly con­cerned—ex­cept maybe those en­gaged in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.”

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge seek­ing con­fir­ma­tion of any in­creased US mil­i­tary pres­ence in lo­cal wa­ters. Sturge de­clined to re­spond but, in a brief mes­sage on Sun­day, said he could not dis­cuss the mat­ter “for ob­vi­ous rea­sons”, adding that “all will be re­vealed at the ap­pro­pri­ate time”.