Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is fir­ing back at Venezuela’s Vice Pres­i­dent, de­clar­ing that she will “dare” to do what­ev­er is nec­es­sary for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Her re­sponse came af­ter Del­cy Ro­dríguez warned this coun­try not to sup­port the Unit­ed States in its al­leged “plans of ag­gres­sion” against Venezuela.

Amidst the de­ploy­ment of Unit­ed States (US) war­ships and troops in the south­ern Caribbean, a move the US said is part of a counter-nar­cotics op­er­a­tion, Ro­driguez is­sued a warn­ing to the gov­ern­ments of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Guyana, urg­ing them not to “dare” to as­sist with what she de­scribed as “per­verse plans of ag­gres­sion” against Venezuela.

Speak­ing with mem­bers of the me­dia be­fore en­ter­ing the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter was asked to re­spond to the Venezue­lan vice pres­i­dent’s state­ment.

“I will dare to do what I have to do to keep the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go safe, and that is my pri­or­i­ty. I’ve said T&T first. That is my pri­or­i­ty,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

The T&T Gov­ern­ment has praised the in­creased US pres­ence and a re­cent strike against a ves­sel al­leged­ly car­ry­ing drugs, which led to the deaths of 11 peo­ple.

But de­spite the Gov­ern­ment’s al­liance with the US, yes­ter­day Per­sad-Bisses­sar sought to un­der­score that this coun­try has no in­ten­tion of “in­vad­ing Venezuela” or step­ping on Venezue­lan soil.

“Noth­ing of the sort is hap­pen­ing.”

She added that there have been no dis­cus­sions with the US for any in­va­sion of Venezuela.

“At the mo­ment, we have had no dis­cus­sions with re­spect to in­vad­ing Venezuela, with re­spect to T&T go­ing on­to the soil of Venezuela. It’s just fear­mon­ger­ing. How­ev­er, I re­peat, should Venezuela in­vade Guyana, Trinidad and To­ba­go will def­i­nite­ly step for­ward in de­fence of our cousins, our broth­ers and sis­ters in the Cari­com.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said it is not new for the US mil­i­tary to have a pres­ence in the re­gion, and she re­it­er­at­ed that she wel­comes them.

“If that can help us stem the crim­i­nal­i­ty, the traf­fick­ing, the nar­co-traf­fick­ing, the hu­man traf­fick­ing, and the pain and suf­fer­ing that brings to the peo­ple here, then yes, we wel­come them, and look for­ward to their co­op­er­a­tion with us.”

T&T and Guyana re­main the on­ly Cari­com na­tions to sup­port the US mil­i­tary pres­ence. Cari­com as a body is yet to speak on the is­sue.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the re­cent elec­tions in Guyana and Ja­maica would have oc­cu­pied their lead­ers’ at­ten­tion and may have in­ad­ver­tent­ly led to a de­lay in a “co­he­sive” re­sponse from the re­gion­al body.

But she re­it­er­at­ed there is no fric­tion be­tween this coun­try and the rest of Cari­com, de­spite a dif­fer­ence of opin­ion.

“We have al­ways had dif­fer­ences. That’s an­oth­er thing that is a false nar­ra­tive. Cari­com has al­ways had dif­fer­ences, and that’s why we say we are sov­er­eign, but at the same time, we speak with one voice. So, there are is­sues that will have dif­fer­ences of opin­ion. St Vin­cent and the Grenadines has al­ways had a dif­fer­ent kind of opin­ion to oth­er mem­bers of the Cari­com. That is not to say that we are frac­tured,” the Prime Min­is­ter ex­plained.