Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

As diplo­mat­ic ten­sions in­ten­si­fy be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela, fu­elled by sanc­tions, mil­i­tary pos­tur­ing and in­creas­ing­ly sharp rhetoric, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj says the re­al­i­ty on the ground in Venezuela tells a very dif­fer­ent sto­ry, one not de­fined by fear or un­cer­tain­ty, but by Christ­mas lights and sea­son­al cel­e­bra­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day af­ter a re­cent re­turn from Cara­cas, where he par­tic­i­pat­ed in Venezuela’s Peo­ple’s As­sem­bly for Sov­er­eign­ty and Peace of our Amer­i­ca: Venezuela Chap­ter 2025, Ram­samooj said de­spite the grow­ing hos­til­i­ty sur­round­ing re­cent US ac­tions, Venezue­lan cit­i­zens are not liv­ing in a state of alarm.

“In their malls, the en­tire pop­u­la­tion was fo­cused on Christ­mas, on shop­ping, on fam­i­lies as the case may be, so there was not this ten­sion no­tice­ably in the pub­lic space. The con­flict is on­ly at the po­lit­i­cal rhetoric and lead­er­ship lev­el, in terms of the cour­te­sies and hos­pi­tal­i­ty and warmth of the peo­ple, that was clear­ly ev­i­dent as there were no chal­lenges, like a tourist, walk­ing the streets, hav­ing a meal, or go­ing to shop, there was no hos­til­i­ty among the peo­ple.”

De­spite the sharp lan­guage di­rect­ed at T&T’s lead­er­ship, Ram­samooj al­so said he did not feel un­com­fort­able or un­wel­come dur­ing his time in Venezuela.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump or­dered a block­ade of sanc­tioned Venezue­lan oil tankers this week af­ter seiz­ing one last week, prompt­ing Venezuela to ac­cuse the US of “state-spon­sored pira­cy” at the Unit­ed Na­tions. Venezuela’s In­te­ri­or, Jus­tice and Peace Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo al­so is­sued an­oth­er di­rect warn­ing to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar this week, ac­cus­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go of au­tho­ris­ing Unit­ed States mil­i­tary air­craft to use lo­cal air­ports and sug­gest­ing Venezuela would re­spond if its ter­ri­to­ry or peo­ple were harmed.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns al­so aris­ing from strong pub­lic state­ments is­sued by Venezuela Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro and Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez to­wards Trinidad and To­ba­go Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar amid the diplo­mat­ic fall­out, Ram­samooj said, “This is too se­ri­ous of an is­sue to leave for a fledg­ling group of peo­ple in cab­i­net who don’t even have 365 days of ex­pe­ri­ence deal­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al con­flicts.”

He cau­tioned that po­lit­i­cal pos­tur­ing car­ries re­al risks, warn­ing that de­ci­sions tak­en with­out hu­mil­i­ty or pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion could have se­vere eco­nom­ic and se­cu­ri­ty con­se­quences.

“At this point in time, we must go back to the draw­ing board, re-open strate­gic ne­go­ti­a­tions, un­der­stand where we fit, and do not put our peo­ple at risk. We have to fight the war against crime and drugs, but don’t use that as an ex­cuse to steal the pat­ri­mo­ny of an­oth­er state,” he said.

Ram­samooj stressed that lead­er­ship at this time must be guid­ed by pru­dence.

“No state has the au­thor­i­ty to en­ter the sov­er­eign space of an­oth­er state. You can­not pre­tend we are not cre­at­ing a con­flict,” he said.

“As to what is the cause of the con­flict, and how do you re­solve that con­flict must be con­sid­ered, but you can­not force a think­ing or a per­son’s per­son­al per­spec­tive on­to a na­tion-state. Yes, there are prob­lems, but mak­ing an­oth­er coun­try suf­fer and the re­sources that be­long to them, seiz­ing that, is an in­cor­rect way to re­solve na­tion­al con­flicts.”