KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With grow­ing fears of con­flict be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela and its pos­si­ble im­pact on Trinidad and To­ba­go, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is again plead­ing with cit­i­zens to re­main calm.

As ten­sions con­tin­ued to mount be­tween the US and Venezuela yes­ter­day, re­ports of more mil­i­tary airstrikes against drug ves­sels, CIA op­er­a­tions, and mis­sile de­ploy­ments con­tin­ued to dom­i­nate head­lines.

But speak­ing at the Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Velo­drome in Cou­va, Per­sad-Bisses­sar urged the pub­lic to stay calm, say­ing, “I think there are some peo­ple who are just fear­mon­ger­ing, hys­te­ria. Fear­mon­ger­ing. I as­sure you to be calm. If and when we know more, we will let you know. You will be in­formed about what is hap­pen­ing.

“I have no in­for­ma­tion of a war. I have no in­for­ma­tion of mis­siles land­ing in Venezuela. Again, we are spec­u­lat­ing, and some are de­ter­mined to spread fear and hys­te­ria. Please be calm. My name is Kam­la, be calm.”

T&T finds it­self caught in the diplo­mat­ic cross­fire as US-Venezuela ten­sions height­en.

Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro’s claim that Venezuela has ac­quired 5,000 Russ­ian Igla-S mis­siles has sparked re­gion­al con­cern, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of “lead­ing T&T off a cliff” over the Drag­on gas deal on Wednes­day.

Ac­cord­ing to in­ter­na­tion­al re­ports, Maduro con­firmed the de­ploy­ment of short-range, man-portable sur­face-to-air sys­tems de­signed to tar­get drones, he­li­copters, cruise mis­siles, and low-fly­ing air­craft. He an­nounced the move dur­ing a tele­vised mil­i­tary event, de­scrib­ing it as a di­rect re­sponse to in­creased US mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in the Caribbean. The mis­siles, he said, were sta­tioned in “key air de­fence lo­ca­tions” across Venezuela.

Re­spond­ing to the re­ports of the mis­sile stock­pile, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused some in­di­vid­u­als of fu­elling un­nec­es­sary pan­ic.

Ad­dress­ing Ro­dríguez’s crit­i­cism, how­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she would not en­gage in po­lit­i­cal back-and-forth.

“I have no com­ment. I have no of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion from Madame Del­cy or from the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment, and I will not com­ment on some­thing that I have no of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion about. It is hearsay, they say. I will not en­gage in tit for tat. I am do­ing the best I can. I was elect­ed by the elec­torate. We are all do­ing the best we can to up­lift Trinidad and To­ba­go, and I will con­tin­ue to do so,” the PM said.

Ro­dríguez made her re­marks at the Venezuela Pro­duc­ti­va 2030 eco­nom­ic fo­rum, crit­i­cis­ing T&T’s re­liance on US in­volve­ment in the Drag­on gas deal.

She warned: “Every mol­e­cule ex­port­ed, be it to TT or oth­er neigh­bours as planned, must be paid for... Any­thing else is fan­ta­sy. They are de­ceiv­ing her, and she is de­ceiv­ing you.”

Mean­while, se­nior Venezue­lan diplo­mat Car­los Ron joined the list of of­fi­cials from that coun­try crit­i­cis­ing T&T for not join­ing the rest of its Cari­com neigh­bours in de­nounc­ing the Unit­ed States’ mil­i­tary pres­ence in the Caribbean.

“We hope for a stronger po­si­tion to de­nounce any mil­i­tary ac­tion. I have seen some im­por­tant po­si­tions. An­tigua and Bar­bu­da did not ac­cept the mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion,” Ron said yes­ter­day.

He added, “Then you can con­trast that with the case of T&T. In the case of T&T, it is un­for­tu­nate that they keep on us­ing the ex­cuse and pre­text of drug traf­fick­ing as if this is re­al­ly what’s go­ing on and I don’t de­ny that drug traf­fick­ing is an is­sue, but it is not the main thing that takes place. And un­for­tu­nate­ly, I think that Trinidad right now just re­alised this as two of their fish­er­men were lost as part of that op­er­a­tion. The hu­man cost of this.”

He made the com­ment as a guest yes­ter­day on the Ernesto Cooke pod­cast host­ed by St Vin­cent­ian jour­nal­ist Ernesto Cooke, who is al­so a se­nior jour­nal­ist at the St Vin­cent Times.

From 2018 to ear­li­er this year, Ron al­so served as the deputy min­is­ter for North Amer­i­can Af­fairs at Venezuela’s Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs.

Ron said even if there is a mil­i­tary in­va­sion, as is be­ing tout­ed, it will not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly solve Venezuela’s prob­lems.

“If there are US sanc­tions, of course, there will be eco­nom­ic prob­lems. The is­sues that we Venezue­lans have can­not be solved with out­side in­ter­ven­tion. It must on­ly be solved with­in Venezuela.”

He was adamant that the Unit­ed States is not re­al­ly in­ter­est­ed in clean­ing up the re­gion’s drug prob­lems but on­ly af­ter regime change in Venezuela.

“This is a regime change op­er­a­tion and it is not a drug is­sue. In­ter­na­tion­al re­ports say that drug traf­fick­ing to­wards the Unit­ed States is about 87 per cent on the Pa­cif­ic Ocean and not on this side of the world. So, we know when you de­ploy all this mil­i­tary equip­ment and op­er­a­tions, ob­vi­ous­ly there is an­oth­er pur­pose.”