For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has de­scribed as "mad­ness" and "pow­er­ful stu­pid", Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's call for the Coast Guard to use dead­ly force against any uniden­ti­fied ves­sel en­ter­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go from Venezuela.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the call at a news con­fer­ence in Port-of-Spain on Thurs­day amid fears of a Venezue­lan re­tal­i­a­tion to armed gun­men en­ter­ing Venezuela ear­li­er the week, al­leged­ly from Trinidad.

Venezuela's In­te­ri­or and Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo re­vealed in Cara­cas Thurs­day that a Trinida­di­an cit­i­zen was ar­rest­ed among a group of armed Colom­bians ear­li­er this week and al­so claimed that ter­ror­ists are cur­rent­ly train­ing in Ecuador to en­ter Venezuela, and that the weapons are be­ing brought in from Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Venezue­lan of­fi­cials have said they will hunt down any­one who at­tempts to desta­bilise Venezuela and will go af­ter the gangs wher­ev­er they are.

Dr Row­ley re­spond­ed on his Face­book page soon af­ter.

"This re­sponse is mad­ness," he said, adding, "Our gas fields are 60 miles out at sea. Does the Prime Min­is­ter re­al­ly be­lieve that we can ad­e­quate­ly de­fend those op­er­a­tions, with force, against a high­ly mil­i­ta­rized neigh­bour like Venezuela?"

Dr Row­ley con­tin­ued: "To throw down a 'dead­ly force' gaunt­let to Venezuela can on­ly be viewed as 'pow­er­ful stu­pid' and an un­nec­es­sary burn­ing of our bridges with a friend­ly neigh­bour, in a thin­ly veiled at­tempt to cur­ry favour abroad. What hap­pened to stan­dard diplo­ma­cy, fact-find­ing and com­mon sense in han­dling sen­si­tive mat­ters of this na­ture?"

Dr Row­ley added that the fact that T&T has no in­for­ma­tion about in­sur­gents us­ing our ter­ri­to­ry against an­oth­er, "is no ba­sis to be so bel­liger­ent­ly dis­mis­sive of any al­le­ga­tions made by any of our neigh­bours".

He con­tin­ued: "Ig­no­rance is nev­er a sol­id ba­sis on which to ap­proach any is­sue. His­to­ry has al­ready shown that there was a coup in Trinidad and To­ba­go with­out our own se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices be­ing aware of its plan­ning or ex­e­cu­tion, un­til it was too late. We al­so saw, in full pub­lic view, a failed drone at­tack, on the life of Pres­i­dent Maduro, in a clear at­tempt at as­sas­si­na­tion of a re­gion­al leader. These are back­ground oc­cur­rences that must nev­er be ig­nored."

He added: "So now, not on­ly is the vi­tal Drag­on deal de­clared “dead” by an in­tem­per­ate Prime Min­is­ter but we al­so now de­clare Venezuela a hos­tile na­tion against whom we have flip­pant­ly au­tho­rized the use of 'dead­ly force force' in sit­u­a­tions that we 'have no in­for­ma­tion' and clear­ly do not un­der­stand. If the Prime Min­is­ter and her erst­while ad­vis­ers be­lieve that this makes us look strong, we would have not on­ly ap­peared stronger but would have been in a much bet­ter po­si­tion if we had cho­sen to drink our bush tea at a cool­er tem­per­a­ture, in preser­va­tion of our own in­ter­est."

Venezue­lan raids

Ri­ots and block­ades broke out in the streets of El Mor­ro in Venezuela's Su­cre state ear­li­er this week af­ter armed po­lice forces car­ried out a se­ries of raids be­gin­ning Mon­day morn­ing, as part of an op­er­a­tion tar­get­ing al­leged arms traf­fick­ing from Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro con­firmed the op­er­a­tion from Cumaná, where he was at­tend­ing the in­au­gu­ra­tion of the new may­or, Jhoana Car­ril­lo.

He said, "We cap­tured a group of ter­ror­ists with a ship­ment of weapons of war en­ter­ing from Trinidad and To­ba­go. Half of them are Colom­bian hit­men brought across the Caribbean."

How­ev­er, the pop­u­la­tion of El Mor­ro re­act­ed with out­rage as res­i­dents re­port­ed that the of­fi­cers en­tered homes with­out war­rants and even broke in­to a pub­lic school, forc­ing open the gate.

It re­spond­ed in dozens of res­i­dents block­ing the road con­nect­ing El Mor­ro with Carú­pano and Río Caribe, de­mand­ing re­spect for their rights.

Two com­mu­ni­ty spokesper­sons, María Salazar and Dor­eima Car­reño, re­port­ed that dur­ing the op­er­a­tion, res­i­dents, in­clud­ing chil­dren and the el­der­ly, suf­fered phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse.

They re­quest­ed the in­ter­ven­tion of the Pros­e­cu­tor's Of­fice and the Om­buds­man's Of­fice to stop the al­leged abuse.

“We are liv­ing a night­mare. Our homes are be­ing de­stroyed, our neigh­bours are be­ing de­tained, and our chil­dren are not safe from abuse. We are des­per­ate,” a res­i­dent who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty for fear of reprisals told Venezuela's El Tiem­po news­pa­per.

The El Mor­ro com­mu­ni­ty de­mand­ed that au­thor­i­ties guar­an­tee le­gal pro­ceed­ings, with a court or­der and re­spect for hu­man rights, and warned that they will con­tin­ue to protest un­til they re­ceive an­swers.

So far, no of­fi­cial in­for­ma­tion has been re­leased on the num­ber of de­tainees or the weapons seized.

Ca­bel­lo in­creas­es ten­sions

On Thurs­day, In­te­ri­or and Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo spoke on his tele­vi­sion pro­gramme "Con el Ma­zo Dan­do," where he re­vealed the ar­rest of a Trinida­di­an cit­i­zen whom he iden­ti­fied as a ter­ror­ist, ac­cused of at­tempt­ing to en­ter Venezuela.

Ca­bel­lo re­spond­ed to state­ments from the T&T Min­istry of De­fense, which has an­nounced a probe in­to Maduro's claims but said there was no ev­i­dence to sup­port them.

In a de­fi­ant tone, the Venezue­lan min­is­ter stat­ed: "It's not just Colom­bians who en­ter through Trinidad; there are al­so Trinida­di­an mer­ce­nar­ies."

He clar­i­fied that the T&T de­tainee is in cus­tody, with his rights guar­an­teed, and be­longs to a ter­ror­ist group seek­ing to en­ter the coun­try.

Ca­bel­lo al­so warned of pos­si­ble at­tempts to dis­cred­it the cap­tured man's iden­ti­ty, quip­ping, "I'm sure to­mor­row they'll say he's a mis­sion­ary or an ath­lete."

"Ter­ror­ists are cur­rent­ly train­ing in Ecuador to en­ter Venezuela, and the weapons are be­ing brought in from Trinidad," he added.

The min­is­ter reaf­firmed Venezuela's com­mit­ment to de­fend­ing its sov­er­eign­ty, em­pha­siz­ing, "We pro­tect our ter­ri­to­ry from the west bank of the Es­se­qui­bo Riv­er to Venezuela's La Gua­ji­ra," em­pha­siz­ing con­stant vig­i­lance against ex­ter­nal threats.