Venezuela terminates natural gas contracts with T&T

RAPHAEL JOHN-LALL

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

The Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment has is­sued a state­ment de­nounc­ing the di­rect par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go in col­lu­sion with the US ad­min­is­tra­tion, call­ing it an act of "pira­cy" that re­sult­ed in the theft of Venezue­lan oil.

Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez is­sued the state­ment on her In­sta­gram page on Mon­day.

The Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent’s state­ment not­ed: “In im­me­di­ate re­sponse to this ‘es­ca­la­tion of hos­til­i­ties and se­ri­ous ag­gres­sions’, Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro has made the de­ci­sion to im­me­di­ate­ly ter­mi­nate any ex­ist­ing con­tract, agree­ment, or ne­go­ti­a­tion for the sup­ply of nat­ur­al gas to T&T.”

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, Venezuela has "full knowl­edge" of Trinidad and To­ba­go's par­tic­i­pa­tion in the theft of Venezue­lan oil com­mit­ted on De­cem­ber 10 by the US ad­min­is­tra­tion through the as­sault on a ship trans­port­ing the strate­gic prod­uct.

The Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment de­scribed this in­ci­dent as "a se­ri­ous vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law and a clear trans­gres­sion of the prin­ci­ples of free nav­i­ga­tion and trade."

Oil tanker SKIPPER.

The state­ment al­so di­rect­ly points to the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as hav­ing "re­vealed a hos­tile agen­da against Venezuela since her ar­rival in gov­ern­ment."

Among the ac­tions de­nounced is the "in­stal­la­tion of US mil­i­tary radars" in Trinidad and To­ba­go to ha­rass Venezue­lan ships.

VP Ro­driguez said Venezuela con­sid­ers that “this of­fi­cial has turned its ter­ri­to­ry in­to a ‘US air­craft car­ri­er to at­tack Venezuela, in an un­equiv­o­cal act of vas­salage’.”

Pres­i­dent Maduro pro­ceed­ed to de­nounce the En­er­gy Co­op­er­a­tion Frame­work Agree­ment pre­vi­ous­ly signed with T&T.

"Faced with this ‘very se­ri­ous act that aims to bla­tant­ly steal Venezuela's oil’, the Gov­ern­ment has de­cid­ed to sev­er en­er­gy ties with the Caribbean na­tion," the Venezue­lan VP’s state­ment re­port­ed.

It con­clud­ed: "Venezuela de­mands re­spect! And it will not al­low any colo­nial en­ti­ty and its vas­sals to threat­en the sa­cred sov­er­eign­ty of the coun­try and its right to de­vel­op­ment. Venezuela will al­ways pre­vail."

Last week, the US mil­i­tary seized the oil tanker Skip­per off Venezuela’s coast, which the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment de­nounced.

The Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment in a state­ment ac­cused the U.S. of "bla­tant theft" and de­scribed the seizure as "an act of in­ter­na­tion­al pira­cy". It said it would de­nounce the in­ci­dent be­fore in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies.

U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump promised to in­crease pres­sure on Pres­i­dent Maduro's Gov­ern­ment.