Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers is adamant that this coun­try played no role in the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion to cap­ture for­mer Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro.

Mo­ments af­ter the mil­i­tary ac­tion com­menced in Cara­cas on Jan­u­ary 3, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a state­ment, be­fore 6 am, say­ing, "Trinidad and To­ba­go is NOT a par­tic­i­pant in any of these on­go­ing mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions. Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to main­tain peace­ful re­la­tions with the peo­ple of Venezuela."

How­ev­er, new in­for­ma­tion came to light over the week­end as a me­dia re­port in­di­cat­ed that at least one US mil­i­tary air­craft was re­port­ed­ly seen leav­ing Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port around the same time the US op­er­a­tion took place in Venezuela.

On Sun­day, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge de­nied re­ports that this coun­try was com­plic­it in the ex­trac­tion by al­low­ing a US air­craft per­mis­sion to use Trinidad and To­ba­go’s air­ports.

Min­is­ter Sobers is back­ing his Cab­i­net col­league.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Sobers said, "We have no in­for­ma­tion to cor­rob­o­rate that. Noth­ing on our end. You all would have in­di­cat­ed that you got it from some source, but there’s no in­for­ma­tion from us...We don’t know any­thing about that at all."

Asked if any fa­cil­i­ty in the coun­try was used to ac­com­mo­date US air­craft or ma­rine ves­sels, Sobers quick­ly re­spond­ed, "Noth­ing. Noth­ing at all. We didn’t par­tic­i­pate at all."

Sobers said this coun­try did not even as­sist with pro­vid­ing US troops in­volved in that mis­sion with pro­vi­sions such as food and wa­ter.

Asked if US troops are still post­ed in T&T, Sobers said, "Ob­vi­ous­ly, el­e­ments in the US are in fact in Trinidad, they’ve al­ways been in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We have el­e­ments of US law en­force­ment ac­tive­ly work­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go, which would as­sist us in terms of com­bat­ing the same transna­tion­al crime that we are fight­ing."