Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go is stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Venezuela as the neigh­bour­ing coun­try mourns vic­tims of the re­cent earth­quake while al­so mark­ing the 215th an­niver­sary of its De­c­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence.

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers made the state­ment dur­ing a wreath-lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny on Sat­ur­day, de­scrib­ing the oc­ca­sion as one that blend­ed re­mem­brance with a cel­e­bra­tion of Venezuela’s na­tion­al re­silience.

“As we lay this wreath, let it be more than a sym­bol of mourn­ing. Let it al­so be a sym­bol of friend­ship, sol­i­dar­i­ty, and hope,” Sobers said.

“May it ho­n­our the mem­o­ry of the de­part­ed. May it com­fort the be­reaved. May it strength­en the sur­vivors. And may it af­firm the en­dur­ing bond be­tween the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the peo­ple of Venezuela.”

Sobers said Venezuela’s In­de­pen­dence Day, ob­served on Ju­ly 5, 1811, served as a re­minder of the coun­try’s en­dur­ing spir­it and re­silience even in times of cri­sis.

“On the 5th of Ju­ly, 1811, Venezuela af­firmed its sov­er­eign­ty, courage, dig­ni­ty, and hope. To­day, even in mourn­ing, those val­ues en­dure in the re­silience of the Venezue­lan peo­ple,” he said.

He not­ed that the earth­quake tragedy had res­onat­ed strong­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go due to long­stand­ing ge­o­graph­ic, cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic ties be­tween the two coun­tries.

“Venezuela is not dis­tant from us. We are neigh­bours, joined by ge­og­ra­phy, his­to­ry, cul­ture, fam­i­ly ties, trade, and the shared wa­ters of the Caribbean Sea. In mo­ments of sor­row, neigh­bours must stand to­geth­er,” he said.

Sobers said Gov­ern­ment had co­or­di­nat­ed a na­tion­al re­sponse in­volv­ing both pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor stake­hold­ers to sup­port on­go­ing re­lief ef­forts for Venezuela.

He said or­gan­i­sa­tions in­clud­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, the En­er­gy Cham­ber, as well as sev­er­al min­istries and agen­cies, had joined the ef­fort.

These in­clude the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, and the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, along­side oth­er na­tion­al part­ners.

Sobers added that whole­salers, man­u­fac­tur­ers, su­per­mar­kets and oth­er pri­vate sec­tor en­ti­ties have al­ready pledged emer­gency sup­plies and es­tab­lished col­lec­tion points for pub­lic do­na­tions.

He said all 14 mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions have been des­ig­nat­ed as of­fi­cial col­lec­tion points, with sys­tems in place to sort, pack­age and ship re­lief sup­plies to Venezuela for dis­tri­b­u­tion to af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties.