Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez is now warn­ing T&T against any plans of ag­gres­sion against the “peo­ple of Simón Bolí­var,” say­ing, “Don’t even think about it.”

She made the com­ment even as Venezuela Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro yes­ter­day an­nounced the de­ploy­ment of the In­de­pen­dence 200 Plan, which will see the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Bo­li­var­i­an Na­tion­al Armed Forces (FANB) and the mili­tias on “284 bat­tle fronts” to guar­an­tee “the in­de­pen­dence and peace” of that coun­try.

The move comes af­ter the Unit­ed States de­ployed at least eight war­ships and one sub­ma­rine to the Caribbean in a bid to counter il­le­gal drug traf­fick­ing, which it claimed is em­a­nat­ing from Venezuela.

Al­ready, the US has made a mil­i­tary strike against a ves­sel re­port­ed­ly com­ing from Venezuela with 11 peo­ple on board.

Speak­ing af­ter the an­nounce­ment of the de­ploy­ment in Su­cre, which is lo­cat­ed in east­ern Venezuela, the Venezue­lan vice pres­i­dent ac­cused the gov­ern­ments of T&T and Guyana of act­ing as “vas­sals” of the Unit­ed States War De­part­ment.

She warned T&T and Guyana, “Take it easy. Don’t dare and don’t even think about it. You are lend­ing your­selves to the per­verse plans of an ag­gres­sion against the peo­ple of Simón Bolí­var, but you are al­so lend­ing your­selves to desta­bil­is­ing the en­tire Caribbean and this con­ti­nent.”

Ro­dríguez, who vis­it­ed T&T on March 27, 2020, where he met with then-prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, said the op­er­a­tion in east­ern Venezuela in­cludes 34 ac­tive re­sis­tance points to pro­tect the Caribbean Sea and At­lantic coast, adding: “The Venezue­lan peo­ple are mo­bilised for peace, ready to de­fend our ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty, our in­de­pen­dence, and sta­bil­i­ty.”

Mean­while, Venezue­lan Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar of be­ing “re­spon­si­ble” for the deaths of fish­er­men killed in a US mil­i­tary strike in the Caribbean.

On Sep­tem­ber 2, 11 peo­ple died when a US op­er­a­tion tar­get­ed a boat the Amer­i­cans claimed was leav­ing Venezuela with drugs and com­man­deered by mem­bers of the Tren de Ar­gua gang.

Ca­bel­lo made his com­ments on Wednes­day night dur­ing his week­ly pro­gramme Con El Ma­zo Dan­do, con­tin­u­ing a string of per­son­al at­tacks on the T&T Prime Min­is­ter. Over re­cent months, he has la­belled her “crazy” and, most re­cent­ly, “a drunk leader.”

Ad­dress­ing the in­ci­dent, Ca­bel­lo said the US at­tack was based on “fake news.”

He added, “One of the nar­ra­tives is that they men­tioned the Aragua Train again. It seems they have X-rays from a ship or a plane. They de­ter­mined they were from that or­gan­i­sa­tion. Well, it is a lie! They them­selves ad­mit that.”

He then turned his at­ten­tion to the T&T PM: “They mur­dered some of the peo­ple, and the la­dy who gov­erns Trinidad bears a lot of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. A lot of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Now she’s con­demn­ing to death, any fish­er­man from Trinidad, from To­ba­go, from Venezuela, from any is­land who goes out to fish. They can do it from the high seas and bomb them.”

On Tues­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said no State re­sources will be “wast­ed” to search for the bod­ies of the Venezue­lans who died on the ves­sel. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said this coun­try’s du­ty ends with re­cov­er­ing any “car­cass­es” that washed ashore. Her com­ments came af­ter Colom­bian Pres­i­dent Gus­ta­vo Petro called on this coun­try to search for the re­mains of the Venezue­lans.