Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Amid a rush to su­per­mar­kets by cit­i­zens to stock up on vi­tal food sup­plies, work­place clo­sures and re­ports that sol­diers had been sum­moned to mil­i­tary in­stal­la­tions, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day urged calm and dis­missed claims that Trinidad and To­ba­go was prepar­ing for a Unit­ed States-led land at­tack on Venezuela.

It start­ed with in­for­ma­tion from sev­er­al con­tacts close to the De­fence Force that an or­der was is­sued just af­ter 11 am to all se­nior of­fi­cers, as part of a “height­ened state of pre­pared­ness and on­go­ing re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty pre­pared­ness.”

The or­der was called a “State One Pos­ture.”

But this came even as the Mi­a­mi Her­ald re­port­ed that their sources said Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump had or­dered the com­mence­ment of land strikes against Venezuela.

With no news of an of­fi­cial me­dia con­fer­ence or me­dia re­lease from Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Gov­ern­ment, as rain pelt­ed down in the cap­i­tal, Guardian Me­dia sought to get an­swers from Gov­ern­ment mem­bers out­side the Red House.

When At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie ar­rived, he stepped out of his ve­hi­cle on his mo­bile phone and side-stepped ques­tions as he walked in­to the Red House with­out ac­knowl­edg­ing our pres­ence.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der spoke at a dis­tance as he donned his jack­et be­fore en­ter­ing the Red House.

“That’s a nor­mal thing,” Alexan­der said as he was asked about the De­fence Force or­der.

When told some mem­bers of the pub­lic were in a state of pan­ic, Alexan­der said, “You all done scare the whole pub­lic al­ready?”

Asked to at­tempt to as­suage those pub­lic con­cerns, the min­is­ter said, “When I tell you the truth you are go­ing to say some­thing else.”

When pressed for a mes­sage to the pop­u­la­tion amidst this pe­ri­od of un­cer­tain­ty, Alexan­der said, “Stay calm and all is well.”

Point­ing to Wood­ford Square, he then said, “We were ex­pect­ing a protest out­side here this morn­ing from lo­cals, not Span­ish, lo­cal per­sons protest­ing.”

Asked di­rect­ly, “So that’s what they (De­fence Force) are in a state of readi­ness for? A protest out­side the Par­lia­ment?”

Alexan­der said, “Well, what you think?”

He then walked in­to the Red House.

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, how­ev­er, stopped for an in­ter­view. Asked about the or­der from the De­fence Force, she said, “I don’t know. I have no in­for­ma­tion or knowl­edge about that. I’ll find out.”

Told that some busi­ness places and schools were ques­tion­ing if to end op­er­a­tions ear­ly, the PM said, “Well, I guess there’s a lot of rain so they may want to go home; that hap­pens at times. No one has re­quest­ed these things of me. So when it comes on my desk or on this phone, I’ve seen noth­ing of that sort. And I get a lot of mes­sages. So if there’s a sit­u­a­tion that aris­es, we will deal with it.”

The PM sought to as­sure the na­tion that Gov­ern­ment is in con­stant re­ceipt of in­tel­li­gence and is not in the dark as ten­sions rise be­tween Venezuela and the US.

“There is a lot of spec­u­la­tion, not just here, not lo­cal­ly, every­where. I mean, it’s a sit­u­a­tion that re­al­ly de­mands every­body’s at­ten­tion. We will keep our eyes and ears peeled and act when we see it’s ap­pro­pri­ate.

“We are not sit­ting ducks as we used to be here. We might be get­ting rained on, but we’re not sit­ting ducks in the rain. We have been re­ceiv­ing in­tel­li­gence re­ports ...”

To the na­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “I would say be calm. There’s noth­ing to fear at this time. I can­not pre­dict the fu­ture. But on my cards, on my books, there is noth­ing to fear.”

The PM said she was al­so in reg­u­lar con­tact with the US Em­bassy’s Charge d’Af­faires and thus far, noth­ing had her un­du­ly wor­ried at this point in time.

She added, “The pub­lic should be go­ing about their busi­ness. Keep safe, keep strong, and al­ways put your faith in the Almighty. And they’ll be fine. We will be fine. Again, I as­sure you, if there is any cause for con­cern for Trinidad and To­ba­go, I will share it with you.”

Asked if there was a con­tin­gency plan if war breaks out be­tween Venezuela and the US, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it would be im­prop­er to re­veal it.

Mean­while, in the Par­lia­ment dur­ing the de­bate to ex­tend the State of Emer­gency, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers read a me­dia re­lease put out by his min­istry stat­ing there was no need for the pop­u­la­tion to be con­cerned, as he urged all cit­i­zens to re­main calm.

In the Low­er House, Sobers added, “Ear­li­er this af­ter­noon, White House Spokes­woman An­na Kel­ly de­nied re­ports that the Unit­ed States was im­mi­nent­ly poised to en­gage in mil­i­tary ac­tion in the re­gion and ad­vised that any an­nounce­ment re­gard­ing Venezuela pol­i­cy would come di­rect­ly from the Pres­i­dent, not from the PNM.”

Mean­while, the US Em­bassy in T&T post­ed on X, a brief in­ter­view with Pres­i­dent Trump, who de­nied he or­dered a strike against Venezuela.

US Sec­re­tary of State al­so post­ed on X, quot­ing the Mi­a­mi Her­ald sto­ry and say­ing, “Your sources claim­ing to have knowl­edge of the sit­u­a­tion tricked you in­to writ­ing a fake sto­ry.”

Mean­while, se­nior mil­i­tary per­son­nel were seen en­ter­ing the Red House yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­vealed they were there as part of a pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise.

Invit­ing Guardian Me­dia in­to the room where the ex­er­cise took place, Lt Col Dwayne Ed­wards was pro­mot­ed to colonel, while Chief of De­fence Staff Don Riguel Po­lo was pro­mot­ed to com­modore. Fol­low­ing the brief cer­e­mo­ny, Guardian Me­dia sought to in­ter­view Po­lo about the re­cent de­vel­op­ments but he ad­vised that all ques­tions should be sent to his com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment.