KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­spite es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions be­tween T&T and Venezuela over this coun­try’s sup­port of the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions near Venezue­lan wa­ters, some Moru­ga fish­er­men say the Colum­bus Chan­nel re­mains calm for them.

While some fish­er­men in La Ruf­fin, Moru­ga, fear that the dis­putes be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment could make the sea un­safe, fish prices re­main sta­ble. The ten­sions fol­low a re­cent Unit­ed States airstrike in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters near Venezuela that de­stroyed a sus­pect­ed nar­co-traf­fick­ing boat, killing 11 peo­ple, and drew crit­i­cism from Cara­cas over Port of Spain’s sup­port of Wash­ing­ton.

Moru­ga/Table­land MP Michelle Ben­jamin said fish­er­men have not re­port­ed any fears about the cur­rent US mil­i­tary mis­sion as it re­lates to their jobs. She said fish­er­men have long ex­pressed con­cerns about safe­ty at sea, and the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty is deal­ing with them. She added that busi­ness con­tin­ues as nor­mal.

For Dion La For­tune, it is un­like­ly that prices will change sig­nif­i­cant­ly. He said fish­er­men in the area will al­ways find al­ter­na­tive spots to catch fish. How­ev­er, he be­lieves war will desta­bilise the en­tire coun­try, in­clud­ing the fish­ing in­dus­try, adding that Moru­ga is one of the most ac­tive ports.

“No, it has got a lit­tle more worse. That has not changed. I am say­ing, be­sides that, there is more than the thing with Trinidad and Venezuela be­cause that has passed, school closed and re­opened, and the price re­mained the same. School closed and opened back, and it re­mained the same. They were say­ing it was the eight weeks hol­i­day, and it re­al­ly is a lit­tle dif­fer­ent, but this year is more dif­fer­ent than last year be­cause prices are low­er,” La For­tune said.

La For­tune said carite whole­sales be­tween $9 and $10 per lb, racan­do $2–$2.50 per lb, shark $5, and bacheen $6. He said these prices have been the same for months, but the fi­nal cost to con­sumers de­pends on ven­dors.

He is con­cerned about the war of words be­tween T&T and Venezuela, say­ing it makes his trips un­com­fort­able. He said some of his col­leagues are fear­ful but have no choice as they must eat, and so have stopped ven­tur­ing to some lo­ca­tions in Venezue­lan wa­ters.

Vet­er­an fish­er­man Ron­nie Marchan said he and his men do not feel the ef­fect of the po­lit­i­cal ten­sions. He said the de­struc­tion of an al­leged nar­co-traf­fick­ing fast boat has not af­fect­ed their op­er­a­tions, and fish prices re­main un­changed.

“That does not have an ef­fect on the fish price. The fish price re­al low right now, where fish­er­men are not see­ing any mon­ey. The econ­o­my is slow, so the mon­ey is not cir­cu­lat­ing. Even if we hold fish, the price is low and we’re not get­ting any mon­ey. The price of gas is very high for us. If we were get­ting the reg­u­lar gas, we would have been OK,” Marchan said.

How­ev­er, he said T&T would face se­ri­ous prob­lems if fish­er­men can­not fish in Venezue­lan wa­ters, as that is where they catch their boun­ty of carite, king­fish, shark, rack­a­do, red­fish and oth­ers.

He ex­plained that most fish spawn in Venezue­lan man­groves, and the wa­ters sev­en miles off Trinidad’s coast do not pro­vide suf­fi­cient catch.

“Fish spawns in the man­grove on that side. Salmon, carite, every­thing spawns on that side so for the ma­jor­i­ty of times, there the fish are. We need to go on that side to fish be­cause if we stay on this side, we have noth­ing to get.”

For now, he said there is no US pres­ence in lo­cal wa­ters, and Venezuela’s Guardia Na­cional does not has­sle them, so it is busi­ness as usu­al. Up to Sun­day night, the Coast Guard was pa­trolling the south­ern wa­ters.

While Ce­dros’ fish­er­men are fear­ful, he said the mood in Moru­ga was dif­fer­ent, as they are not as close to Venezuela. Even re­la­tions with Venezue­lan fish­er­men re­main cor­dial. He said the re­al prob­lem fish­er­men face is the con­tin­ued cost of fu­el, spend­ing $1,400 on su­per gaso­line for a trip since the clo­sure of Petrotrin and its pro­duc­tion of cheap­er reg­u­lar gaso­line. (See Page 8)