Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

De­spite be­ing pub­licly thanked by a se­nior Unit­ed States sen­a­tor for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s as­sis­tance in the cap­ture of for­mer Venezue­lan pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is main­tain­ing that this coun­try’s mil­i­tary played no role in the op­er­a­tion that led to his ar­rest.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ject­ed any sug­ges­tion that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mil­i­tary par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Jan­u­ary 3 op­er­a­tion in Cara­cas that cul­mi­nat­ed in Maduro’s ar­rest and ex­tra­di­tion to the Unit­ed States.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go mil­i­tary per­son­nel were not in­volved in the op­er­a­tion that oc­curred in Cara­cas on Jan­u­ary 3rd 2026 to ar­rest Nicholas Maduro,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Pressed about re­marks made by US Sen­ate For­eign Re­la­tions Com­mit­tee Chair­man Sen­a­tor Jim Risch, who cred­it­ed T&T with play­ing an “ac­tive role” in Maduro’s ar­rest, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clined to spec­u­late on what the sen­a­tor meant.

“You would have to clar­i­fy Sen­a­tor Risch’s com­ments with him. I can­not speak to what he meant by ‘ac­tive role,’” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so sought to re­as­sure that diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Venezuela re­main in­tact.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to have good re­la­tions with Venezuela,” she added.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was re­spond­ing af­ter Guardian Me­dia asked her to ad­dress what ap­peared to be a con­tra­dic­tion be­tween Risch’s re­marks dur­ing Thurs­day’s Sen­ate For­eign Re­la­tions Com­mit­tee hear­ing for US am­bas­sador-des­ig­nate to Trinidad and To­ba­go Jen­nifer John­son-Car­roll and her own state­ment is­sued on the day Maduro was cap­tured.

Guardian Me­dia al­so asked whether T&T had played any role in the op­er­a­tion, whether she was main­tain­ing her Jan­u­ary po­si­tion that the coun­try had no in­volve­ment in the mil­i­tary ac­tion, and whether Risch’s com­ments could strain re­la­tions with Venezuela.

Dur­ing Thurs­day’s con­fir­ma­tion hear­ing, Risch praised this coun­try while out­lin­ing the im­por­tance of the bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is a fel­low democ­ra­cy and a key US eco­nom­ic, diplo­mat­ic, and se­cu­ri­ty part­ner in the Caribbean,” Risch said.

“And most re­cent­ly, Trinidad has played an ac­tive role in sup­port of US law en­force­ment ef­forts in the re­gion, in­clud­ing the ar­rest and ex­tra­di­tion of Nico­las Maduro in Venezuela. We are very grate­ful for this work.”

The com­mit­tee’s rank­ing De­mo­c­rat, Sen­a­tor Jeanne Sha­heen, al­so high­light­ed T&T’s strate­gic im­por­tance, though she did not specif­i­cal­ly ref­er­ence Maduro’s ar­rest.

“As the Chair­man said, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s prox­im­i­ty to Venezuela places it on the front lines of re­gion­al in­sta­bil­i­ty,” Sha­heen said, cit­ing mi­gra­tion pres­sures, traf­fick­ing net­works and broad­er se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges while ex­press­ing hope that the bi­lat­er­al part­ner­ship would con­tin­ue to deep­en.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s lat­est com­ments are con­sis­tent with the po­si­tion she adopt­ed on Jan­u­ary 3, when the Unit­ed States launched a mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion in­side Venezuela that re­sult­ed in Maduro’s cap­ture and sub­se­quent ex­tra­di­tion to face crim­i­nal charges in the US. The op­er­a­tion trig­gered wide­spread in­ter­na­tion­al de­bate over sov­er­eign­ty and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

She is­sued a state­ment say­ing T&T was “NOT a par­tic­i­pant in any of these on­go­ing mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions” and stressed that the coun­try con­tin­ued to main­tain peace­ful re­la­tions with the peo­ple of Venezuela.

Her Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion came amid height­ened re­gion­al ten­sions af­ter Venezue­lan of­fi­cials ac­cused T&T of align­ing it­self with the Unit­ed States, al­le­ga­tions which the Gov­ern­ment de­nied.

Ques­tions over this coun­try’s role al­so come against the back­drop of the con­tro­ver­sial in­stal­la­tion of a US-sup­plied mil­i­tary-grade radar sys­tem at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in To­ba­go in No­vem­ber 2025, as Wash­ing­ton in­ten­si­fied its mil­i­tary pres­ence in the south­ern Caribbean and pres­sure on the Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The tim­ing of the radar’s even­tu­al de­par­ture al­so at­tract­ed at­ten­tion. Maduro was cap­tured by US forces in Cara­cas on Jan­u­ary 3, and just over two months lat­er, on March 16, Guardian Me­dia con­firmed that the radar had been dis­man­tled at Crown Point.

Pre­ced­ing Maduro’s cap­ture, there was al­so in­creased US mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in the coun­try, in­clud­ing vis­its by US war­ships, joint mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es, and per­mis­sion for US mil­i­tary air­craft to use lo­cal air­ports. Gov­ern­ment de­nied these fa­cil­i­tat­ed ac­tions against Maduro, in­sist­ing they sup­port­ed na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.