Raphael John-Lall

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Don’t shoot the mes­sen­ger. Probe the claims!

This is the ad­vice of a se­nior Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial to the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion, amid con­tin­u­ing diplo­mat­ic ten­sion be­tween the neigh­bour­ing coun­tries.

Speak­ing dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of In­te­ri­or, Jus­tice and Peace Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo em­pha­sised that T&T’s ag­gres­sion was mis­placed.

“That woman’s state­ments are crazy, be­cause we’re not en­ter­ing Trinidad, nor are our boats en­ter­ing Trinidad. I don’t know what lethal forces they have, but it’s crazy, a crazy state­ment,” Ca­bel­lo said.

“What we have said is that weapons were brought to Venezuela from T&T. That’s not a rea­son to at­tack the per­son re­port­ing the news; it is a rea­son to in­ves­ti­gate.”

He al­so as­sert­ed that Venezuela does not in­ter­fere in the af­fairs of T&T, nor does it have any plans to en­ter its ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters.

“When we speak of weapons and crim­i­nal net­works, it’s not about blam­ing neigh­bours,” Ca­bel­lo, who was speak­ing in his ca­pac­i­ty as the rul­ing Unit­ed So­cial­ist Par­ty of Venezuela’s (PSUV) ex­ec­u­tive sec­re­tary, said.

“We’re not say­ing the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad is be­hind it. We’re say­ing the weapons were seen com­ing from there. Log­i­cal­ly, if that’s the case, we have a right to ques­tion what’s hap­pen­ing.”

His com­ments come af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last week warned that this coun­try was off-lim­its to Venezuela and that any in­cur­sion in­to T&T ter­ri­to­ry would be met with dead­ly force. This af­ter Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties re­port­ed that a Tri­ni was among a group of in­di­vid­u­als who were held try­ing to en­ter Venezuela from T&T wa­ters with the in­ten­tion of desta­bil­is­ing that coun­try.

“To­day, I want to make it very clear to the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment and of­fi­cials that they can do what­ev­er they want on Venezue­lan ter­ri­to­ry, but they can­not come here. T&T ter­ri­to­ry is off lim­its to them,” she de­clared dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Red House, Port-of-Spain. 

She added, “No amount of rhetoric from the Maduro gov­ern­ment will dri­ve any wedge be­tween this UNC-led gov­ern­ment and the US gov­ern­ment. We stand solid­ly with the Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment on the is­sues con­cern­ing Venezuela. That will not change.”

In the face of the PM’s threats, Ca­bel­lo yes­ter­day in­sist­ed, “We don’t need to in­vent any­thing. Venezuela is a coun­try of peace and sta­bil­i­ty”

He ex­plained that Venezuela was the first coun­try to warn about the pres­ence of ir­reg­u­lar armed groups in neigh­bour­ing ter­ri­to­ries, as is the case with Colom­bia, which it prompt­ly no­ti­fied of the ge­o­graph­ic lo­ca­tion of sub­ver­sive or­gan­i­sa­tions.

He again urged Port-of-Spain to “in­ves­ti­gate what is hap­pen­ing in­ter­nal­ly.”