Gary Aboud raises concerns over his visa revocation

Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) has raised alarm over the re­cent re­vo­ca­tion of the U.S. visa of its cor­po­rate sec­re­tary, Gary Aboud, warn­ing that civ­il so­ci­ety voic­es may be un­der pres­sure for speak­ing out. The or­gan­i­sa­tion said NGOs are a crit­i­cal pil­lar of democ­ra­cy.

In a state­ment, Aboud said that with­out in­de­pen­dent civ­il so­ci­ety over­sight, there can be no trans­paren­cy or pro­tec­tion against abus­es of au­thor­i­ty.

FFOS ex­pressed sup­port for strong and de­ci­sive ac­tion against the drug trade, ac­knowl­edg­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s stat­ed com­mit­ment to stop­ping drugs and firearms from en­ter­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go. “Drugs have de­stroyed fam­i­lies, fu­elled vi­o­lence, and in­flict­ed gen­er­a­tional dam­age on our so­ci­ety,” the state­ment said.

How­ev­er, Aboud stressed the or­gan­i­sa­tion can­not con­done ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings. “The end does not jus­ti­fy these un­law­ful and vi­o­lent mur­ders. The fight against nar­cotics must be root­ed in the rule of law, due process, and re­spect for hu­man rights,” he said.

The state­ment al­so crit­i­cised re­cent U.S. strikes on Venezue­lan ves­sels, de­scrib­ing them as lethal at­tacks car­ried out un­der the claim of counter-nar­cotics op­er­a­tions but in vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law. Aboud high­light­ed that the UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights called the strikes “un­ac­cept­able” and de­mand­ed an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion, while Hu­man Rights Watch deemed them “ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings.” He ques­tioned why the Prime Min­is­ter has pub­licly en­dorsed vi­o­lent ac­tion while fail­ing to con­demn the deaths of two Trinida­di­ans in the strikes.

Aboud drew at­ten­tion to lo­cal mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges, not­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go hosts U.S. war­ships and he­li­copters while the Coast Guard re­mains un­der-equipped. He called for fast in­ter­cep­tor ves­sels, mod­ern radar sys­tems, and func­tion­ing he­li­copters to se­cure the south­ern mar­itime bor­der, which he de­scribed as a cor­ri­dor for hu­man traf­fick­ing, con­tra­band, and il­le­gal arms.

He al­so urged the Unit­ed States to fo­cus on com­bat­ing gangs and crim­i­nal net­works op­er­at­ing on land, where cit­i­zens face dai­ly threats in­clud­ing mur­ders, rapes, kid­nap­pings, and rob­beries.

Re­gard­ing his visa re­vo­ca­tion, Aboud said while he re­spects the U.S. de­ci­sion, it rais­es con­cerns about whether civ­il so­ci­ety lead­ers are be­ing pe­nalised for dis­sent.

“FFOS will al­ways sup­port our Prime Min­is­ter in a strong, law­ful, and ef­fec­tive fight against the drug and arms trade. We will nev­er con­done un­law­ful killings or aban­don the prin­ci­ples of jus­tice and due process that pro­tect us all,” the state­ment said, af­firm­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s com­mit­ment to de­fend­ing both com­mu­ni­ties and democ­ra­cy.