For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has warned that Trinidad and To­ba­go is at “grave risk”, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of aban­don­ing the re­gion’s decades-old neu­tral stance and plac­ing the coun­try in the path of po­ten­tial mil­i­tary con­flict be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence to­day, Row­ley said there is “ab­solute­ly noth­ing” in the Sta­tus of Forces Agree­ment signed un­der his ad­min­is­tra­tion that com­mits Trinidad and To­ba­go to breach­ing the UN Char­ter or tak­ing part in mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion. He said any con­se­quences now will arise sole­ly from de­ci­sions tak­en by the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment.

He crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­cent po­si­tion, say­ing her com­ments about stand­ing with the Unit­ed States amount­ed to dis­card­ing CARI­COM’s “zone of peace” prin­ci­ple. “We are at grave risk,” he said. “Is it that we are now lay­ing down pros­trate in front of some­body and say, We sur­ren­der to you, pro­tect us from all evil? That is our for­eign pol­i­cy?”

Row­ley ques­tioned whether the coun­try had made any pro­vi­sion to pro­tect it­self if Venezuela were at­tacked. “If Venezuela finds it­self un­der at­tack from the Unit­ed States, as­sist­ed by Trinidad and To­ba­go, does that not make Trinidad and To­ba­go a le­git­i­mate tar­get?” he asked.

He warned that even a cred­i­ble threat to off­shore gas plat­forms could shut down pro­duc­tion, Point Lisas and elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion, say­ing the na­tion re­mains dan­ger­ous­ly vul­ner­a­ble.