Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

De­spite be­ing de­clared “per­sona non gra­ta,” Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pledged Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sup­port to earth­quake-rav­aged Venezuela, say­ing the Gov­ern­ment stands ready to pro­vide hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance as the neigh­bour­ing coun­try grap­ples with wide­spread dev­as­ta­tion.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pressed sym­pa­thy to the Venezue­lan peo­ple fol­low­ing Wednes­day night’s two pow­er­ful earth­quakes, which caused ex­ten­sive de­struc­tion and sig­nif­i­cant loss of life.

“The Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and I, ex­tend our heart­felt sym­pa­thy to the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Venezuela fol­low­ing the re­cent earth­quake, which has caused loss of life and de­struc­tion,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

“Our thoughts, prayers, and sol­i­dar­i­ty are with all those af­fect­ed. We stand ready to as­sist in what­ev­er hu­man­i­tar­i­an way we can dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time.”

She added, “We wish the peo­ple of Venezuela safe­ty, strength, and a swift re­cov­ery as they nav­i­gate the af­ter­math of this nat­ur­al dis­as­ter.”

While the PM’s state­ment was post­ed on her so­cial me­dia plat­forms, it is un­clear if Per­sad-Bisses­sar reached out per­son­al­ly to Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez.

The Gov­ern­ment’s of­fer of as­sis­tance comes as of­fi­cials con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions with Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties to de­ter­mine what im­me­di­ate sup­port can be pro­vid­ed.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath said For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers had ad­vised that Trinidad and To­ba­go was al­ready in di­a­logue with the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment as it as­sess­es the dis­as­ter.

“I spoke with the Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs a short while ago. He has ad­vised that the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go is in di­a­logue with the Gov­ern­ment of Venezuela in the af­ter­math of the earth­quake that rocked parts of Cara­cas, caus­ing se­vere dev­as­ta­tion and the loss of thou­sands of lives in Venezuela,” Padarath said.

“We of­fer our sin­cere con­do­lences to our broth­ers and sis­ters in Venezuela.”

Padarath said Venezuela was cur­rent­ly com­pil­ing a list of its most ur­gent hu­man­i­tar­i­an needs be­fore as­sis­tance from Trinidad and To­ba­go is mo­bilised.

“Once that list is pro­vid­ed to the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, we will ac­tion based on what we are able to pro­vide and as­sist with,” he said.

He added that the Gov­ern­ment was al­so en­gag­ing the pri­vate sec­tor and wider na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to sup­port the re­lief ef­fort.

“We con­tin­ue to work with oth­er en­ti­ties, whether it’s cor­po­rate Trinidad and To­ba­go or the wider na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in pro­vid­ing any sup­port that we can.”

He said fur­ther de­tails would be re­leased once Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties iden­ti­fy their im­me­di­ate re­quire­ments.

The Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, in a me­dia re­lease, said there have been no re­ports of Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als be­ing killed or in­jured in Venezuela’s dev­as­tat­ing earth­quakes. It said four na­tion­als who were in the coun­try for a sport­ing event are be­ing as­sist­ed with tem­po­rary ac­com­mo­da­tion and arrange­ments to re­turn home, while of­fi­cials con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and re­main in con­tact with Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties.

Out­side of the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions have al­so be­gun mo­bil­is­ing as­sis­tance.

Se­wa TT chair­man Re­van Teelucks­ingh said the or­gan­i­sa­tion is co­or­di­nat­ing with the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM), the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA) and the Venezue­lan Em­bassy be­fore launch­ing its re­lief dri­ve.

He said the char­i­ty in­tends to fo­cus pri­mar­i­ly on food as­sis­tance and is fi­nal­is­ing arrange­ments with su­per­mar­ket part­ners where mem­bers of the pub­lic will be able to make fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions.

Teelucks­ingh said mon­e­tary do­na­tions are be­ing re­quest­ed in­stead of canned goods be­cause they al­low Se­wa TT to pur­chase food in bulk at dis­count­ed prices, se­cure prod­ucts with longer shelf lives, max­imise ship­ping ef­fi­cien­cy and en­sure do­na­tions are used more ef­fi­cient­ly.

He added that, as a reg­is­tered char­i­ty, do­na­tions to the ini­tia­tive will al­so qual­i­fy for tax cred­its.

Ques­tions over diplo­mat­ic re­sponse

How­ev­er, ques­tions over T&T’s diplo­mat­ic re­sponse emerged af­ter Venezuela’s Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez pub­licly thanked sev­er­al re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lead­ers for their ex­pres­sions of sol­i­dar­i­ty fol­low­ing the dis­as­ter, but made no men­tion of T&T, at least up till press time last night.

Among those ac­knowl­edged was Guyana, de­spite the long­stand­ing ter­ri­to­r­i­al dis­pute be­tween the two coun­tries.

The omis­sion prompt­ed crit­i­cism from Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, who ques­tioned whether the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse had been suf­fi­cient­ly proac­tive.

Beck­les said she per­son­al­ly con­tact­ed Venezuela’s Am­bas­sador to T&T, Ál­varo Sánchez, to ex­press con­do­lences on be­half of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and the Par­lia­men­tary Op­po­si­tion.

“I spoke with His Ex­cel­len­cy Am­bas­sador Ál­varo Sánchez to con­vey on be­half of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and the Par­lia­men­tary Op­po­si­tion our heart­felt sym­pa­thy and our sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Venezue­lan peo­ple,” Beck­les said.

She said she al­so pledged the Op­po­si­tion’s sup­port for hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance.

“Venezuela, as we can all agree, is our clos­est neigh­bour.”

Beck­les ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fi­cial state­ment lacked the lead­er­ship re­quired dur­ing a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis.

“That is why it is dis­ap­point­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fi­cial state­ment failed to re­flect the lev­el of lead­er­ship and diplo­mat­ic se­ri­ous­ness that this mo­ment de­mands.”

She al­so crit­i­cised a state­ment is­sued by the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, which in­di­cat­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go stood pre­pared to pro­vide re­quest­ed sup­port where pos­si­ble.

“So that this Gov­ern­ment has de­cid­ed that the peo­ple of Venezuela, if they re­quest sup­port, then they will be pre­pared to as­sist,” she said.

“I think it can­not be that Trinidad and To­ba­go will put out a press re­lease say­ing to peo­ple that ba­si­cal­ly, if you ask, we’ll con­sid­er it. We must do bet­ter than that. That is to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able.”

Beck­les ques­tioned whether the word­ing re­flect­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion or whether it had been craft­ed in­de­pen­dent­ly by the min­istry.

“My ques­tion to the Prime Min­is­ter is whether the Prime Min­is­ter agrees with that state­ment or whether di­rec­tives were giv­en for the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs to is­sue such a state­ment that, in my hum­ble view, is very in­sen­si­tive.”

She ar­gued that the dis­as­ter pre­sent­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for Trinidad and To­ba­go to demon­strate lead­er­ship re­gard­less of any po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences be­tween the two coun­tries.

“Notwith­stand­ing what­ev­er, this is a dis­as­ter,” she said.

“Be­cause al­so re­mem­ber that we have Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans there. We have an em­bassy there.”

Ex­pert not sur­prised at re­sponse

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions spe­cial­ist Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les said he was not sur­prised that Trinidad and To­ba­go was omit­ted from Ro­dríguez’s pub­lic ac­knowl­edge­ments.

He point­ed to the long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween Guyana and Venezuela de­spite their bor­der con­tro­ver­sy.

“The dis­pute with Guyana and Venezuela goes way back, yet still they main­tain diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions and they trade,” Gon­za­les said.

“The (Guyanese) Gov­ern­ment would nev­er get up and say neg­a­tive things about the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment.”

He sug­gest­ed that re­cent crit­i­cism of Venezuela by Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Gov­ern­ment may have strained re­la­tions.

“I think what has hap­pened is that be­cause the Gov­ern­ment over the last year have con­sis­tent­ly crit­i­cised them, they sort of turned them off and kind of made them feel that this Gov­ern­ment is not very in favour of them.”

Gon­za­les al­so sug­gest­ed the T&T Gov­ern­ment may have mis­judged po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments with­in Venezuela.

“They didn’t ex­pect Del­cy to re­tain pow­er. They didn’t ex­pect the Amer­i­cans to do what they did there, so Del­cy ends up back in pow­er, which they were nev­er an­tic­i­pat­ing.”

Rare seis­mic event

On the evening of June 24, 2026, a rare and dev­as­tat­ing “dou­blet” seis­mic event struck north-cen­tral Venezuela, where a mag­ni­tude 7.2 earth­quake was fol­lowed just 39 sec­onds lat­er by an even more pow­er­ful 7.5 mag­ni­tude quake cen­tred near Mon­tal­bán.

The con­sec­u­tive tremors, among the strongest to hit the coun­try in over a cen­tu­ry, in­flict­ed cat­a­stroph­ic dam­age across the cap­i­tal of Cara­cas and the coastal state of La Guaira, leav­ing at least 188 peo­ple dead, over 1,500 in­jured, and hun­dreds more miss­ing un­der col­lapsed struc­tures.

The dis­as­ter com­plete­ly dis­rupt­ed crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture, caus­ing wide­spread pow­er and com­mu­ni­ca­tion black­outs, forc­ing the clo­sure of Simón Bolí­var In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, and se­vere­ly dam­ag­ing lo­cal hos­pi­tals.

In re­sponse, the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment de­clared a state of emer­gency, mo­bil­is­ing na­tion­al emer­gency per­son­nel, fire­fight­ers, and lo­cal vol­un­teers in­to a fran­tic, around-the-clock ef­fort to pull sur­vivors from the rub­ble. These do­mes­tic teams were joined by the Venezue­lan Red Cross and in­ter­na­tion­al aid or­gan­i­sa­tions to co­or­di­nate ur­gent med­ical care, tem­po­rary shel­ter, and clean wa­ter, though res­cue op­er­a­tions re­main dan­ger­ous­ly com­pli­cat­ed by the threat of struc­tur­al af­ter­shocks and heav­i­ly strained lo­cal re­sources.