Local groups protest US action in Venezuela

Carisa Lee

Re­porter

[email protected]

Hours af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­tanced Trinidad and To­ba­go from the Unit­ed States’ mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion in Venezuela on Sat­ur­day—which re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro and his wife—a group of civ­il so­ci­ety ac­tivists gath­ered out­side the Venezue­lan Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, ac­cus­ing the PM of be­ing com­plic­it in the at­tack.

The pro­test­ers, who have been vo­cal in op­pos­ing US mil­i­tary in­volve­ment in the re­gion, said the Gov­ern­ment failed to up­hold re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty and the Caribbean’s des­ig­na­tion as a zone of peace.

“When re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty was re­quired, we chose prox­im­i­ty to em­pire. When Cari­com as­sert­ed the Caribbean as a zone of peace, we un­der­mined it. When sov­er­eign­ty was un­der threat, we of­fered ac­cess, le­git­i­ma­cy, and si­lence,” so­cial ac­tivist Abeo Jack­son said.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not di­rect­ly ad­dress Jack­son’s claims but in­stead point­ed to the small turnout at the protest, say­ing she re­spect­ed the right of cit­i­zens to ex­press their views once it was done with­in the law.

“Al­though the protest was an abysmal fail­ure with about twelve per­sons … that is their de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right, and I don’t see any­thing wrong with them ex­press­ing their views,” she said in a What­sApp re­sponse.

Among those at the protest were the All Man­sions of Rasta­fari, Con­cerned Mus­lims of T&T, the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee, Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea, the Ifa/Orisa Coun­cil of T&T, the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), the Net­work of NGOs for the Ad­vance­ment of Women, the T&T Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Trin­ba­go for Pales­tine, and the Warao Na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Ac­tivists Khafra and Shaba­ka Kam­bon and Wayne Kublals­ingh were al­so present.

Un­der the watch of a del­e­ga­tion of po­lice of­fi­cers, MSJ leader David Ab­du­lah ar­gued that the PM’s po­si­tion amount­ed to tac­it sup­port for the US ac­tion.

“She says that Trinidad and To­ba­go did not par­tic­i­pate in the at­tack. Well, of course, the po­lice and army did not par­tic­i­pate,” Ab­du­lah said.

“But if some­one is in a house where an­oth­er per­son is abus­ing a child, and you stand by and sup­port that in­di­vid­ual, you can­not say you did not par­tic­i­pate.”

Ab­du­lah warned that the US op­er­a­tion posed a threat to sov­er­eign­ty and self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and could fur­ther desta­bilise the re­gion.

Asked about so­cial me­dia videos show­ing Venezue­lans cel­e­brat­ing Maduro’s ar­rest, Jack­son said such im­ages did not negate the hard­ships faced by Venezue­lans, but main­tained that for­eign mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion was not a le­git­i­mate so­lu­tion.

She said she re­ject­ed ex­ter­nal mil­i­tary ac­tion as a way to re­solve Venezuela’s cri­sis, de­scrib­ing it in­stead as im­pe­ri­al­ist ag­gres­sion that vi­o­lat­ed sov­er­eign­ty and risked wors­en­ing con­di­tions.

Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador to T&T Ál­varo Sánchez Cordero re­it­er­at­ed his gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion that the US mil­i­tary ac­tion con­sti­tut­ed a bla­tant vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law and the Unit­ed Na­tions Char­ter. He warned that no coun­try was im­mune to such force and said the re­moval of Pres­i­dent Maduro set a dan­ger­ous glob­al prece­dent.

“We are de­fend­ing our peace, our democ­ra­cy, and our right to ex­ist,” Sánchez Cordero said.

“In 1819, our lib­er­a­tor Simón Bolí­var told a US en­voy a time­less truth: free peo­ple de­feat pow­er­ful em­pires. And I re­peat—free peo­ple de­feat pow­er­ful em­pires.”