Cedros residents in fear: Call for security amid tension with Venezuela

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Res­i­dents of the south­west­ern penin­su­la are call­ing for in­creased se­cu­ri­ty at the Ce­dros Se­cu­ri­ty Com­plex as ten­sions sim­mer fol­low­ing claims by the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment that a Trinidad na­tion­al has been ar­rest­ed as part of a plot to desta­bilise Venezuela.

The Ce­dros Se­cu­ri­ty Com­plex hous­es the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard, Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, Po­lice Ser­vice, and Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion and is cru­cial for bor­der con­trol and mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty near the Venezuela-Trinidad mar­itime bound­ary.

How­ev­er, de­spite Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call for the T&T Coast Guard to use dead­ly force against any uniden­ti­fied ves­sel en­ter­ing from Venezuela, there was no vis­i­ble in­crease in se­cu­ri­ty at the Ce­dros port when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed yes­ter­day.

No Venezue­lan boats were seen ar­riv­ing or de­part­ing, and on­ly one pirogue was docked. Venezue­lan mi­grants milled around the shops, and a few re­spond­ed shy­ly, say­ing “No Eng­lish” when ap­proached.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Trinida­di­an Arun Bun­see, who lives at Bouis Bourg, Ce­dros, called on the Prime Min­is­ter to send ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty to Ce­dros to quell their fears. “I don’t feel safe about that; there is noth­ing here to keep us safe from all the ten­sion around this area,” he said.

Mean­while, some fish­er­men ex­pressed fears about go­ing to sea, al­though they ex­pressed sup­port for Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s stance.

Fish­er­man Arvin Ma­habir called on her to cre­ate bet­ter op­por­tu­ni­ties for res­i­dents, say­ing fish­ing was the on­ly op­tion for youths who chose to stay in Ce­dros. He said fish­er­men can no longer risk fish­ing near the bor­der.

“The places where the fish­es are, we can­not go be­cause they say­ing it’s the bor­der ... The fish­er­men from the Fullar­ton vil­lage, the fish­er­men from the Ica­cos vil­lage ... they can’t make a liv­ing right now,” Ma­habir said.

He ex­plained that Venezue­lan coast guard pa­trols have made fish­ing dan­ger­ous.

“When we see the Venezue­lan Coast Guard come, we just have to run for our life. Some­times the boat flip and peo­ple just get dam­aged. Man get bust head and all kind of thing. En­gine cut up peo­ple,” he said.

Ma­habir al­so said the lack of jobs has pushed many in­to the sea de­spite the risks.

“It have noth­ing else be­sides fish­ing ... it have no jobs, it don’t have enough jobs for us.”

Asked whether there had been any in­crease in se­cu­ri­ty since the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ments, Ma­habir said, “No, we have not seen no type of se­cu­ri­ty ... Coast Guard not do­ing what they’re sup­posed to do on the bor­der­line. If they were do­ing what they’re sup­posed to do, we would have at least been safer.”

He al­so de­scribed en­coun­ters with Venezue­lan ban­dits who de­mand ran­som, seize en­gines, or rob fish­er­men of their boats. “If the ban­dits hold we, we have no choice. We have to pay ran­som.”

He added that Ce­dros fish­er­men have lit­tle choice. “We just try­ing to make some­thing of we self.”

Ma­habir al­so crit­i­cised the re­sources avail­able to Coast Guard of­fi­cers sta­tioned in Ce­dros. “It is not even a prop­er boat. Tthey don’t have prop­er equip­ment at the Ce­dros area. They don’t have noth­ing.”

Res­i­dent Atesh Ram­paul said res­i­dents have been call­ing for ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty at the Ce­dros Se­cu­ri­ty Com­plex.

“Right now we do not feel safe. We need the step­ping up of po­lice and more safe­ty for the fish­er­men out there. They risk­ing their lives to make an hon­est dol­lar for their fam­i­lies,” Ram­paul said.

On Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro to “stay out” of T&T’s wa­ters. Venezuela lat­er re­spond­ed with an of­fi­cial state­ment call­ing her re­marks “irate and un­jus­ti­fied.”

On Mon­day, Venezuela’s Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo, speak­ing on his tele­vi­sion pro­gramme Con El Ma­zo Dan­do, claimed a Trinida­di­an na­tion­al iden­ti­fied as “Gis Kendel Jheron” was cap­tured while at­tempt­ing to en­ter Venezuela with a group he la­belled as ter­ror­ists. Ca­bel­lo al­leged the group’s goal was to desta­bilise the Venezue­lan state.

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed yes­ter­day that more than one Trinida­di­an has been de­tained, but no ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion was avail­able.

How­ev­er, Ce­dros vil­lagers told Guardian Me­dia they do not know any­one named Gis Kendel Jheron.

Res­i­dents ex­pressed con­fu­sion and con­cern over the al­le­ga­tions, say­ing the claim had fur­ther height­ened ten­sions along the south­west­ern coast.

“We nev­er hear that name be­fore,” said res­i­dent Rudolph Singh.

“No­body in the vil­lage know any man by that name.”

Kavi­ta Ma­habir al­so said she was sure that no­body from Ce­dros knew Jheron.

“If that per­son ex­ists, he is not from Ce­dros for sure. No­body knows that name,” she said. Coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh al­so said Jheron was not known in the Ce­dros re­gion.

xists, he is not from Ce­dros for sure. No­body knows that name,” she said. Coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh al­so said Jheron was not known in the Ce­dros re­gion.

(See Page 6)