GAIL ALEXAN­DER

& RAPHAEL LALL

Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro last night con­firmed the sus­pen­sion of gas agree­ments with Trinidad and To­ba­go, say­ing this was due to the re­cent hos­tile ac­tions tak­en by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Gov­ern­ment.

Ear­li­er yes­ter­day, Venezuela Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez had made the com­men­da­tion to Maduro, cit­ing ten­sions aris­ing from Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s wel­come of the US mil­i­tary.

Ro­driguez said the board of Venezuela’s Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. had pro­posed to Maduro the im­me­di­ate de­nun­ci­a­tion of the En­er­gy Co­op­er­a­tion Frame­work Agree­ment be­tween T&T and Venezuela.

Last evening, dur­ing the 95th broad­cast of his pro­gramme Con Maduro, Maduro said, “On the air­craft car­ri­er of the su­prema­cists of the US em­pire against Venezuela and South Amer­i­ca, I have ap­proved the pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure of the im­me­di­ate sus­pen­sion of all the ef­fects and the agree­ments. That is why I have de­cid­ed to take this de­ci­sion. What the su­prema­cists want is Venezuela’s rich­es.”

He added, “I ap­proved the pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure of sus­pend­ing the agree­ment and re­quest­ed that the case be re­ferred to the Coun­cil of State, the Supreme Court of Jus­tice, and the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly to take struc­tur­al mea­sures in this mat­ter.”

The ar­rival of the US naval ship the USS Grave­ly in T&T on Sun­day gen­er­at­ed con­tin­ued stern re­spons­es from Venezuela yes­ter­day, with sev­er­al Venezue­lan min­is­ters al­leg­ing that T&T is align­ing it­self with the Unit­ed States to at­tack Venezuela.

Dur­ing the pro­gramme, Maduro said all ev­i­dence re­gard­ing the CIA’s al­leged mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es off the Venezue­lan coast had pre­vi­ous­ly been hand­ed over to T&T.

“The last time we gave them all the ev­i­dence of those who want­ed to bomb the head­quar­ters of what was the Unit­ed States em­bassy in Cara­cas, they sim­ply went out to pro­tect us, we know for sure in Mi­a­mi, we gave them names and sur­names.”

In this re­gard, Maduro re­port­ed that be­tween Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, a new group of mer­ce­nar­ies paid by the CIA was cap­tured and their ob­jec­tive was to car­ry out an au­to-at­tack on the mil­i­tary ves­sels that the US has po­si­tioned off the Venezue­lan coast.

In ex­plain­ing the move ear­li­er yes­ter­day, Ro­driguez said the en­er­gy deal, signed in 2015, was valid for 10 years and was re­newed in Feb­ru­ary for five more.

Ro­driguez cit­ed Ar­ti­cle 13, num­ber 3 of the agree­ment, which al­lows ei­ther par­ty to de­nounce the agree­ment.

“We are re­spon­si­bly propos­ing to the Head of State to de­nounce it im­me­di­ate­ly. And, as a con­se­quence, to sus­pend all gas agree­ments that Venezuela main­tains with Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Ro­driguez added.

Ro­driguez point­ed out that T&T is “a neigh­bour­ing broth­er­ly coun­try with sol­id his­tor­i­cal ties be­tween our re­publics, with sol­id ties of friend­ship be­tween our peo­ples.”

How­ev­er, she added, “But the new Prime Min­is­ter of this coun­try has de­cid­ed to join the US agen­da to at­tack a Caribbean broth­er­ly peo­ple, to at­tack Venezuela, to at­tack Colom­bia, to at­tack South Amer­i­ca, in a re­al­ly sur­pris­ing way.

“It can­not be ex­pressed oth­er­wise. The po­si­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go is sur­pris­ing. She has de­cid­ed to be­lieve the lit­tle birds that were sold to her from the Unit­ed States, that they can in­vade Venezuela, take the gas, hand it over. No, no, no. The on­ly way is en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion.

“That is why this di­rec­tive pro­pos­es re­spon­si­bly to Pres­i­dent Maduro the de­nun­ci­a­tion of the co­op­er­a­tion agree­ment and the sus­pen­sion of all gas agree­ments that our re­pub­lic main­tains with Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

PM: No­body will

pres­sure us!

How­ev­er, in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said no one, in­clud­ing the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment, will pres­sure or black­mail her Gov­ern­ment in­to re­treat­ing from the fight against drug car­tels.

“The last Gov­ern­ment mis­tak­en­ly placed all their hopes in the Drag­on project. We have not done so, there­fore, we’re not sus­cep­ti­ble to any black­mail from the Venezue­lans for po­lit­i­cal sup­port.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said T&T’s fu­ture does not de­pend on Venezuela “and nev­er has,” added that plans are un­der­way for eco­nom­ic growth with­in the en­er­gy and non-en­er­gy sec­tors.

With the OFAC li­cence valid for six months, whether the Drag­on Gas project is once again dead is now an is­sue. But Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her Gov­ern­ment was await­ing Venezuela’s of­fi­cial cor­re­spon­dence.

She said,” No one, be it the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment, Cari­com or any oth­er en­ti­ty, will pres­sure or black­mail my Gov­ern­ment in­to re­treat­ing from the fight against the drug car­tels.

“I am tired of see­ing our cit­i­zens mur­dered and ter­rorised be­cause of gang vi­o­lence dri­ven by il­le­gal drugs and arms traf­fick­ing. T&T cit­i­zens’ safe­ty and hap­pi­ness is my main con­cern.”

The PM added, “We con­tin­ue to main­tain peace­ful re­la­tions with the Venezue­lan peo­ple.”

UNC sources last evening said since 2020, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion had agreed to con­duct busi­ness with PDVSA af­ter then op­po­si­tion leader Juan Gui­do ap­point­ed Ho­ra­cio Fran­cis­co Med­i­na Her­rera Pres­i­dent of “the ad hoc” PDVSA Board, “There­fore if the Maduro regime re­fus­es to deal with TT on the Drag­on gas deal, there are oth­er av­enues for di­a­logue and li­cens­ing,”

Beck­les, Young blame Govt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les al­so yes­ter­day said Ro­dríguez’s an­nounce­ment was alarm­ing, un­for­tu­nate and deeply con­cern­ing.

“This de­vel­op­ment presents a com­plex and del­i­cate chal­lenge, re­quir­ing a mea­sured and thought­ful re­sponse. The PNM has long prid­ed it­self on be­ing care­ful and dili­gent in the pur­suit of eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty and growth for T&T. This lat­est twist is alarm­ing and con­se­quen­tial and rests square­ly at the feet of the sit­ting T&T Gov­ern­ment,” Beck­les said in a re­sponse, which came be­fore Maduro’s con­fir­ma­tion of the sus­pen­sion.

“The press­ing ques­tion now is what lies ahead for T&T in this pe­ri­od of un­cer­tain­ty.”

Young, mean­while, added, “The UNC Gov­ern­ment must ex­plain to the peo­ple of T&T why they are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly de­stroy­ing our coun­try’s fu­ture. This lat­est de­vel­op­ment from Cara­cas is not at all sur­pris­ing.

“I’m sad­dened to see how quick­ly things are falling apart in our en­er­gy sec­tor af­ter the last 10 years of hard work. I’m now al­so con­cerned about the ef­fects of this on Man­a­tee, as Man­a­tee is part of the Lo­ran/Man­a­tee field which is shared with Venezuela. The man­age­ment of the en­er­gy sec­tor and its fu­ture re­quires com­pe­tence and so­phis­ti­ca­tion, and abil­i­ty to think many moves ahead. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this is sore­ly lack­ing.”

Young called al­so out Per­sad-Bisses­sar on fail­ing to ad­dress the na­tion fol­low­ing the wors­en­ing of re­la­tions with Venezuela and the on­go­ing US-Venezue­lan ten­sions.

“T&T has al­ways sup­port­ed and abid­ed by the Unit­ed Naitons char­ter prin­ci­ples and of non- in­ter­ven­tion and non-in­ter­fer­ence in the do­mes­tic af­fairs of oth­er sov­er­eign coun­tries.

“There’s good rea­sons for us adopt­ing and liv­ing by these prin­ci­ples. Equal­ly, we have al­ways ad­vo­cat­ed for and sup­port­ed our re­gion re­main­ing a zone of peace and for good rea­son,” he said.

He added, “I’m sad­dened to see where we have found our­selves with a Prime Min­is­ter who has failed to ad­dress the na­tion in any mean­ing­ful man­ner, de­spite the jus­ti­fi­able grow­ing anx­i­ety and po­si­tion we have found our­selves in as a re­sult of her lead­er­ship and de­ci­sions. It’s al­ways bet­ter to be en­gaged in diplo­mat­ic con­ver­sa­tions and seat­ed at ta­bles dis­cussing dif­fer­ences as op­posed to not do­ing so...”

(With re­port­ing by Akash Sama­roo)