Cedros on edge as PM stands firm against Venezuela

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

In the fish­ing vil­lage of Ica­cos in Ce­dros, where Venezuela is just sev­en miles away, res­i­dents and fish­er­men fear for their safe­ty and liveli­hoods amid ten­sions be­tween the two coun­tries.

Last week, the Venezue­lan Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo al­leged on his pro­gramme Con El Ma­zo Dan­do that a Trinida­di­an na­tion­al, who he named “Guis Kendell Jarome”, had been cap­tured while trav­el­ling to Venezuela with a group la­belled “ter­ror­ists” in an at­tempt to desta­bilise their gov­ern­ment.

This trig­gered Per­sad-Bisses­sar to warn Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro a day lat­er to stay out of T&T’s wa­ters or they would be met with dead­ly force.

Venezuela, in an of­fi­cial state­ment that fol­lowed, de­scribed her re­sponse as “irate and un­jus­ti­fied” and ex­pressed pro­found sur­prise over the de­vel­op­ments.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so stat­ed that her gov­ern­ment is sup­port­ing the US Gov­ern­ment on is­sues con­cern­ing Venezuela.

While many sup­port Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s firm stance on pro­tect­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sov­er­eign­ty, oth­ers are call­ing for cau­tion and diplo­ma­cy to avoid es­ca­la­tion.

“That was not the cor­rect ap­proach,” said 51-year-old res­i­dent Daniel John. How­ev­er, he agrees that Per­sad-Bisses­sar has to pro­tect T&T from all threats.

“Is a se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tion. We in dan­ger here be­cause if they start to shoot there, we can’t brakes for we self here. We in re­al prob­lem here,” lament­ed John.

The vil­lage, lo­cat­ed at the south west­ern­most point of the coun­try, is known as a hotspot for il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing the smug­gling of firearms, drugs, and live­stock, as well as the unau­tho­rised en­try of un­doc­u­ment­ed im­mi­grants.

Last March, po­lice seized Colom­bian high-grade mar­i­jua­na worth over $165 mil­lion and $19.3 mil­lion in co­caine in a forest­ed, swampy area off Austin Trace, Coro­man­del Vil­lage, Ce­dros.

Over the years, par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing so­cial and po­lit­i­cal un­rest in Venezuela, the vil­lage has be­come dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed with Venezue­lans—many of them un­doc­u­ment­ed. Some res­i­dents, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, com­plained that they were al­ready ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a lot of is­sues with Span­ish mi­grants, and this new de­vel­op­ment be­tween T&T and Venezuela has com­pound­ed their stress lev­els.

How­ev­er, sev­er­al fish­er­men who spoke with Guardian Me­dia on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty were deeply con­cerned about how the ten­sions be­tween both coun­tries would af­fect their liveli­hood and safe­ty.

Many of them spoke about their en­coun­ters with the Guardia Na­cional and ad­mit­ted that they of­ten en­ter Venezue­lan wa­ters to fish.

Suk­daye Ack­ool, who be­gan her fish­ing ca­reer at the ten­der age of nine but re­tired more than ten years ago, said she sup­ports Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s stance.

Fifty-eight-year-old Ack­ool is, how­ev­er, con­cerned about the fish­er­men’s safe­ty at sea. “Is re­al­ly not a bad thing” she says, “but the fish­er­man can­not go back out there to fish. It will be very se­ri­ous be­cause ei­ther they kill them or take their boat or what­so­ev­er.”

Call­ing for a stronger Coast Guard pres­ence, she said, “Pa­trol up and down be­cause all fish­er­men will be out in the sea. So, them have to be very care­ful now how they are go­ing to fish and where the fish hold­ing; they will can’t go there. So they have to keep a close dis­tance, and if they see a boat, they have to take up their an­chor and run with their pirogue.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent, 79-year-old Gool­ba­har Mo­hammed, said if the sit­u­a­tion es­ca­lates, T&T will be no match for Venezuela’s ar­se­nal and mil­i­tary.

“We have to be con­cerned about it be­cause they are our neigh­bours. We too small for Venezuela, on­ly if we de­pend on Amer­i­ca and all them big places to come and thing for we,” he lament­ed.

While agree­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter has to pro­tect her peo­ple, Mo­hammed be­lieves that both sides should thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gate the is­sue and then find an am­i­ca­ble so­lu­tion.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Neil Sookram, is al­so pray­ing for the best. “I per­son­al­ly, I don’t have any fear about it. I feel that through diplo­ma­cy they could prob­a­bly iron out their dif­fer­ences, but the re­al­i­ty is that we are no match for the Venezue­lan Navy or Coast Guard. We trust in God,” he added.

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s force­ful stance against Venezuela has drawn mixed re­ac­tions. For­mer prime min­is­ters Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Stu­art Young were among those who crit­i­cised her ap­proach and called for a more mea­sured diplo­mat­ic strat­e­gy.

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith al­so agreed that T&T must pur­sue “diplo­mat­ic di­a­logue and con­sul­ta­tion, rather than mus­cle-flex­ing.”