Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Lo­cal na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and law en­force­ment of­fi­cials met yes­ter­day evening to dis­cuss al­le­ga­tions of a lo­cal link to desta­bilise Venezuela.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge con­firmed the meet­ing with high-rank­ing of­fi­cials.

Ear­li­er yes­ter­day, Sturge con­firmed that ini­tial checks by law en­force­ment of­fi­cials to con­firm the iden­ti­ty of a man, who Venezue­lan of­fi­cials claimed was a T&T na­tion­al and in­volved in the re­port­ed at­tempt, proved un­suc­cess­ful.

“All we have is a name (Guis Kendell Jerome), and we don’t have a per­son like that in the crim­i­nal records data­base,” Sturge said, as he not­ed that he was await­ing a fur­ther up­date from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS)’s Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch (CA­PA).

A high-rank­ing source with­in the TTPS con­firmed Sturge’s state­ment as he not­ed that strin­gent checks showed that the name was not with­in the data­base, which records when peo­ple are charged and con­vict­ed of crim­i­nal of­fences.

The diplo­mat­ic ten­sion be­tween the coun­tries arose ear­li­er this week when Venezue­lan Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo al­leged on his pro­gramme Con El Ma­zo Dan­do that a Trinida­di­an na­tion­al, whom he named “Guis Kendell Jerome”, had been cap­tured while trav­el­ling to Venezuela with a group la­belled “ter­ror­ists” in an at­tempt to desta­bilise that coun­try’s gov­ern­ment.

Re­spond­ing to the claim at the post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing on Thurs­day, Sturge not­ed that his min­istry had ini­ti­at­ed a probe al­though pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that there was no ev­i­dence to sub­stan­ti­ate the al­le­ga­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so weighed in on the is­sue as she warned the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment that T&T was off-lim­its and that she would put the Coast Guard on alert to use dead­ly force if any ves­sel from that coun­try sought to ac­cess lo­cal wa­ters il­le­gal­ly.

“To­day, I want to make it very clear to the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment and of­fi­cials that they can do what­ev­er they want on Venezue­lan ter­ri­to­ry, but they can­not come here. T&T ter­ri­to­ry is off lim­its to them,” she de­clared.

“No amount of rhetoric from the Maduro gov­ern­ment will dri­ve any wedge be­tween this UNC-led gov­ern­ment and the US gov­ern­ment. We stand solid­ly with the Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment on the is­sues con­cern­ing Venezuela. That will not change,” she added.

In a state­ment is­sued on Fri­day, the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment led by Pres­i­dent Nicholas Maduro called on the T&T Gov­ern­ment to tone down the dead­ly force rhetoric used.

“The Prime Min­is­ter’s vir­u­lent and high-hand­ed at­ti­tude rais­es se­ri­ous sus­pi­cions of com­plic­i­ty ... and un­der­mines the good co­op­er­a­tive re­la­tions be­tween our coun­tries in key ar­eas,” the state­ment said.

The Venezue­lan com­mu­niqué added that the coun­try’s of­fi­cials had “cap­tured crim­i­nals of Trinida­di­an ori­gin” who con­fessed to the al­leged in­cur­sion. It claimed that the men’s state­ments were “du­ly sup­port­ed with com­pelling ev­i­dence”.

The Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment said the ap­pro­pri­ate course of ac­tion would have been a fact-find­ing mis­sion.

“Giv­en the se­ri­ous­ness of this sit­u­a­tion, the ap­pro­pri­ate course of ac­tion is to of­fer co­op­er­a­tion and a will­ing­ness to clar­i­fy the facts. The vir­u­lent and ar­ro­gant stance of the Prime Min­is­ter rais­es se­ri­ous sus­pi­cions of com­plic­i­ty in this in­cur­sion and jeop­ar­dis­es the good co­op­er­a­tive re­la­tions that ex­ist be­tween our coun­tries in key ar­eas,” it said.

“Venezuela urges the au­thor­i­ties of T&T not to be­come en­tan­gled in geopo­lit­i­cal games that run counter to the in­ter­ests of our peo­ples and reaf­firms its com­mit­ment to peace, sov­er­eign­ty and mu­tu­al re­spect, re­mind­ing that any le­git­i­mate con­cern must be ad­dressed through diplo­mat­ic chan­nels, not through threats or un­found­ed state­ments that on­ly serve to es­ca­late ar­ti­fi­cial ten­sions,” it added.

No word from Sobers

Guardian Me­dia made sev­er­al at­tempts to con­tact For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers to en­quire whether he had held dis­cus­sions with Venezue­lan of­fi­cials or if they had pro­vid­ed fur­ther par­tic­u­lars that could be utilised by lo­cal law en­force­ment of­fi­cials in their con­tin­ued probe.

How­ev­er, Sobers did not re­spond to calls and What­sApp mes­sages sent to his cell­phone.

Heer­ah urges lead­ers to pri­ori­tise diplo­ma­cy

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah joined with oth­er lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­perts, who have called for a de-es­ca­la­tion of diplo­mat­ic ten­sion be­tween both coun­tries.

Heer­ah not­ed that state­ments from both Maduro and Per­sad-Bisses­sar high­light­ed the im­por­tance and sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the is­sue.

“How­ev­er, in mat­ters of this na­ture-es­pe­cial­ly when in­volv­ing two neigh­bour­ing coun­tries with long-stand­ing ties–cau­tion, diplo­ma­cy, and strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tion must take prece­dence over pub­lic con­fronta­tion,” Heer­ah said.

Stat­ing that both coun­tries were bound by a “com­plex web of geopo­lit­i­cal, so­cio-eco­nom­ic, se­cu­ri­ty, hu­man­i­tar­i­an and cul­tur­al re­la­tions”, Heer­ah added, “Any sus­tained es­ca­la­tion in rhetoric or ac­tions can have far-reach­ing con­se­quences be­yond bi­lat­er­al ten­sions.”

“It can dis­rupt cross-bor­der en­er­gy agree­ments, threat­en joint ef­forts in re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and an­ti-traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tions, in­crease mi­gra­to­ry pres­sures, and desta­bilise long-stand­ing mul­ti­lat­er­al en­gage­ments with mu­tu­al part­ners,” he added.

Heer­ah, who served as ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC), en­cour­aged both coun­tries to de-con­flict rather than es­ca­late the sit­u­a­tion.

“Both sides should reaf­firm their re­spect for each oth­er’s sov­er­eign­ty, in­ter­na­tion­al law, and com­mit­ment to re­solv­ing dis­putes through peace­ful and diplo­mat­ic means,” he said.

“At a time when the re­gion is grap­pling with eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery, cli­mate change, transna­tion­al crime, and the move­ment of vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions, our lead­ers must rise above the im­pulse of de­fen­sive pos­tur­ing.”