Cabello warns Persad-Bissessar over US military access

Raphael John Lall

Venezuela’s Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo has is­sued a di­rect warn­ing to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, ac­cus­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go of au­tho­ris­ing Unit­ed States mil­i­tary air­craft to use lo­cal air­ports and sug­gest­ing Venezuela would re­spond if its ter­ri­to­ry or peo­ple were harmed.

Speak­ing on his week­ly Wednes­day night pro­gramme Con El Ma­zo Dan­do, Ca­bel­lo said: “T&T is au­tho­ris­ing US mil­i­tary as­sets to use their air­ports. Look at me close­ly, if some­thing hap­pens to us here in Venezuela, you know what's go­ing to hap­pen. Be cer­tain, be ab­solute­ly cer­tain, Madam (Prime Min­is­ter). Be ab­solute­ly cer­tain if Venezuela is at­tacked by the Unit­ed States… And we're not talk­ing about the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. No, no, no.”

Ca­bel­lo made the re­marks be­fore a live stu­dio au­di­ence of gov­ern­ment sup­port­ers, who shout­ed and ap­plaud­ed as he spoke. Dur­ing the broad­cast, he placed a stick­er on a board read­ing: “Trinidad and To­ba­go au­tho­ris­es US mil­i­tary air­craft to utilise their air­ports.”

Clips of the pro­gramme cir­cu­lat­ed wide­ly on Venezue­lan so­cial me­dia short­ly af­ter the broad­cast. In re­sponse, one Venezue­lan com­menter ar­gued Trinidad and To­ba­go should be ab­sorbed in­to Venezue­lan ter­ri­to­ry re­gard­less of who gov­erns Port of Spain. “Se­ri­ous­ly, speak­ing about se­cu­ri­ty… we must in­cor­po­rate that is­land that was his­tor­i­cal­ly Venezue­lan un­til the theft of the Eng­lish… It is es­sen­tial, re­gard­less of whether this Chávez Gov­ern­ment is in pow­er or not,” the post read.

Ca­bel­lo al­so dis­missed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­sponse to Venezuela’s de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate all en­er­gy agree­ments. Af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Trinidad and To­ba­go nev­er re­lied on Venezuela for nat­ur­al gas sup­plies, Ca­bel­lo said: “T&T la­bels it fake pro­pa­gan­da, Venezuela’s an­nounce­ment to ex­tin­guish the gas deal. Fake, fake. Open the valve to see.”

Ear­li­er this week, Trinidad and To­ba­go grant­ed per­mis­sion for US mil­i­tary flights in­to and out of Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port and the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. Two US mil­i­tary trans­port air­craft have since ar­rived, mark­ing the first record­ed move­ments fol­low­ing for­mal tran­sit ap­proval an­nounced by the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs on Mon­day.

Hours af­ter that an­nounce­ment, Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro end­ed all en­er­gy agree­ments with Trinidad and To­ba­go, ac­cus­ing the gov­ern­ment of hos­tile ac­tions and col­lu­sion with the Unit­ed States fol­low­ing the seizure of a tanker car­ry­ing Venezue­lan oil last week.