ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go’s fish­er­folk say they are alarmed by the “deaf­en­ing si­lence” of Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine fol­low­ing the Unit­ed States’ de­struc­tion of a Venezue­lan ves­sel that left 11 peo­ple dead.

The strike took place on Sep­tem­ber 2, 2025, in the south­ern Caribbean. The U.S. claimed the ves­sel was car­ry­ing drugs and linked to the Venezue­lan gang Tren de Aragua. No one was ar­rest­ed, and no ev­i­dence has been pre­sent­ed pub­licly.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar sup­port­ed the Amer­i­cans’ ac­tion, say­ing: “I have no sym­pa­thy for traf­fick­ers; the US mil­i­tary should kill them all vi­o­lent­ly.”

De­bris be­lieved to be from the de­stroyed ves­sel has since washed in­to To­ba­go’s wa­ters.

Pres­i­dent of the All To­ba­go Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion, Cur­tis Dou­glas, con­firmed fish­er­men found the de­bris.

“It is true. It is not no make up sto­ry. It's fish­er­men dis­cov­er it,” he said.

Dou­glas warned that lo­cal fish­er­men fear they could be mis­tak­en for traf­fick­ers.

“Our fish­er­men go 40 and 50 miles, very deep, and they could eas­i­ly be mis­tak­en for do­ing what­ev­er, drugs or what­ev­er, and be­ing blown in­to the wa­ter,” he said.

He added: “Nu­mer­ous mem­bers of the fish­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion of fish­er­men are con­cerned that he [THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine] is very mute in a sit­u­a­tion like this. To­bag­o­ni­ans are very, very deeply con­cerned how a leader of the THA… hasn't said any­thing com­fort­ing to give fish­er­folk the re­as­sur­ance that it's okay for us to go out in the sea and fish.”

At­tempts to con­tact the Chief Sec­re­tary for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.