November: A month of pressure, power and promises

Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­[email protected]

If the ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States were bub­bling be­fore with Trinidad and To­ba­go in the mid­dle, by No­vem­ber, there was hard­ly a front page that didn’t speak to the de­vel­op­ing sto­ry.

The month be­gan with the T&T Guardian’s front page scream­ing, “ARMY ON HIGH ALERT.” No­vem­ber end­ed with the front-page warn­ing, “AIR­SPACE ALERT.”

In be­tween, No­vem­ber went down as a turn­ing point in the US-Venezuela con­flict, and one that sig­nif­i­cant­ly test­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s re­solve in its han­dling of the im­pact of that fall­out on this coun­try.

The un­cer­tain­ty that cov­ered the coun­try sent T&T in­to con­fu­sion on the af­ter­noon of Oc­to­ber 31. With re­ports cir­cu­lat­ing that the mil­i­tary was or­dered to re­turn to base amid re­ports that a US at­tack on Venezuela was im­mi­nent, a claim which was at­trib­uted to Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump him­self, stores shut­tered ear­ly, busi­ness­es in the cap­i­tal city sent home their work­ers ear­ly, and there was mas­sive traf­fic jam to ex­it Port-of-Spain.

In the midst of this tense mood, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told the pub­lic there was “noth­ing to fear at this time.”

In the days that fol­lowed, there was a promise from the Gov­ern­ment that they would not leave cit­i­zens in the dark. There was, how­ev­er, good rea­son for the pub­lic to be un­easy.

Out in the ocean, the US war­ship, the USS Ger­ald R Ford - the largest air­craft car­ri­er and war­ship ever con­struct­ed - was en­ter­ing Caribbean wa­ters.

At the same time, Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro was launch­ing his gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse by or­der­ing the de­ploy­ment of 200,000 troops and launch­ing mil­i­tary drills.

But the signs that T&T was be­com­ing more deeply en­trenched in this con­flict were in plain sight. The Gov­ern­ment wel­comed the US Ma­rine Corps 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit to take part in what it said were lo­cal train­ing ex­er­cis­es with the lo­cal De­fence Force.

At the time, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie told the Fi­nan­cial Times, “We are en­gaged with our friends in the north in a se­ries of ex­er­cis­es.”

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers al­so firm­ly dis­missed spec­u­la­tion that the joint train­ing ex­er­cis­es would lead to war be­tween the US and Venezuela, with T&T in the mid­dle.

The ques­tions of T&T’s role in this con­flict on­ly grew loud­er for the Gov­ern­ment, and many of those ques­tions were be­ing raised by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar again sought to as­sure cit­i­zens that this coun­try was not host­ing the Amer­i­cans in prepa­ra­tion for a phys­i­cal con­fronta­tion with Venezuela, say­ing, on No­vem­ber 18, “The US has nev­er re­quest­ed use of our ter­ri­to­ry to launch any at­tacks against the peo­ple of Venezuela.”

Yet, such state­ments were in­creas­ing­ly scru­ti­nised, es­pe­cial­ly when the top US mil­i­tary chief, Gen­er­al Dan Caine, vis­it­ed Trinidad for a few hours on No­vem­ber 25. It came as the US des­ig­nat­ed Venezuela Pres­i­dent Maduro as a ter­ror­ist. Caine’s vis­it would be deep-fried in se­cre­cy and dou­bles. While the top gen­er­al of the US had the lo­cal dish with the prime min­is­ter, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff’s web­site said the talks in­clud­ed “the desta­bil­is­ing ef­fects of il­lic­it nar­cotics, arms, and hu­man traf­fick­ing, and transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion ac­tiv­i­ties.”

Then came the mil­i­tary planes. On the morn­ing of No­vem­ber 26, a US Air Force C-17A Globe­mas­ter III land­ed at Crown Point Air­port in To­ba­go. In ad­dress­ing the con­fu­sion sur­round­ing the ar­rival and sub­se­quent de­par­ture of the air­craft, es­pe­cial­ly from To­bag­o­ni­ans be­wil­dered by the height­ened ac­tiv­i­ty of for­eign mil­i­tary air­craft, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “They are help­ing us with some­thing to do with the air­port. It’s not a mil­i­tary force as such; they are not here on the ground. We are not about to launch any cam­paign against Venezuela.”

How­ev­er, Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, Far­ley Au­gus­tine, then re­vealed he was left in the dark about the ar­rival and mis­sion of the air­craft and US mil­i­tary per­son­nel.

The sit­u­a­tion reached a head in No­vem­ber when US Pres­i­dent Trump, writ­ing on his Truth So­cial plat­form, said that the air­space of Venezuela should be con­sid­ered closed. Trump ad­dressed his call for an aer­i­al block­ade to “air­lines, pi­lots, drug deal­ers, and hu­man traf­fick­ers.”

While the ten­sion felt at the start of No­vem­ber did not trans­late in­to the war many thought was loom­ing, by the end of the month the prospect seemed even greater.

No­vem­ber would al­so mark a ma­jor turn­ing point for the car­ni­val in­dus­try.

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar made a ma­jor an­nounce­ment on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) that shook one sec­tor of the in­dus­try in par­tic­u­lar.

“I in­struct­ed that all fetes at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA) be stopped as the noise has be­come un­bear­able for res­i­dents. For far too long, the is­sue of noise pol­lu­tion and its neg­a­tive im­pact on com­mu­ni­ties have been ig­nored.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed noise pol­lu­tion as a nui­sance. The ban was lat­er ex­tend to all sta­dia un­der the am­bit of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott), in­clud­ing the Jean Pierre Com­plex and the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um.

The an­nounce­ment sowed deep di­vi­sion among the pop­u­la­tion, with many sup­port­ing her stance, while pro­mot­ers in T&T warned it could be the “death of car­ni­val.”

In a re­lease then, the T&T Pro­mot­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion said, “Tourism, en­ter­tain­ment, and cul­ture stake­hold­ers with­in the TTPA have ex­pressed shock and dis­may at the an­nounce­ment, which takes im­me­di­ate ef­fect less than 100 days be­fore Car­ni­val 2026.”

The pro­mot­ers said many of their mem­bers had al­ready re­ceived ap­proval to use the BLCA and oth­er key venues be­fore they were in­formed of the Gov­ern­ment de­ci­sion, and al­so not­ed there was no con­sul­ta­tion with them pri­or to the move.

On the oth­er hand, the Gov­ern­ment re­ceived ap­plause from sec­tors for tak­ing a firm stance against noise pol­lu­tion.

In a state­ment, Cit­i­zens Against Noise Pol­lu­tion TT (CANPTT), said, “The eco­nom­ic and health im­pacts are equal­ly se­ri­ous. Cit­i­zens kept awake un­til the ear­ly morn­ing hours must still re­port to work, re­sult­ing in re­duced pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, height­ened stress and in­creased ab­sen­teeism. Noise ex­po­sure wors­ens hy­per­ten­sion, car­diac dis­ease, mi­graines, anx­i­ety dis­or­ders and oth­er chron­ic con­di­tions, plac­ing ad­di­tion­al strain on both the pub­lic and pri­vate health­care sys­tems.”

Sky­scrap­ers. Clean cities. A re­pur­posed Sea Lots.

In ear­ly No­vem­ber, Per­sad-Bisses­sar promised 50,919 jobs as she un­veiled an am­bi­tious Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print with a wave of in­fra­struc­ture projects.

Some of the projects an­nounced were the re­pur­pos­ing of the Car­rera Is­land and Port-of-Spain pris­ons in­to event halls and re­sorts.

While the Prime Min­is­ter de­clared “T&T is open for busi­ness and every­one is wel­come,” her Works Min­is­ter, Jear­lean John, said aside from jobs, the projects would make the T&T land­scape “un­recog­nis­able” in five years.

The Prime Min­is­ter called for col­lab­o­ra­tion among in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, pri­vate sec­tor firms, and the pub­lic ser­vice, as she said Gov­ern­ment was set to em­bark on ma­jor up­grades to Port-of-Spain, San Fer­nan­do, Ga­le­o­ta Point, In­vaders Bay, and the prison sys­tem.

“In the com­ing years, you will see cranes pierc­ing the sky­lines of Port-of-Spain. In San Fer­nan­do, you will see dredges carve new hori­zons along the coast. You will see bull­doz­ers ready to go up to Tamana, Gold­en Grove, and along the San Fer­nan­do to Ma­yaro to Ga­le­o­ta High­way,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

The Prime Min­is­ter added that T&T in­tends to mod­el its growth on na­tions such as Sin­ga­pore, Sau­di Ara­bia, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, Bahrain, and Kuwait: coun­tries that once de­pend­ed heav­i­ly on en­er­gy but suc­cess­ful­ly di­ver­si­fied their economies.

She stressed, how­ev­er, that the pub­lic ser­vice must play a cen­tral role in im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness and re­mov­ing un­nec­es­sary bu­reau­cra­cy through mod­ernised gov­er­nance and re­vised ad­min­is­tra­tive sys­tems.

“If we do this the way we’re lay­ing it out to­day, by 2030 you will not recog­nise the coun­try, and by 2035, you’ll be in a whole dif­fer­ent space,” Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John added about Gov­ern­ment’s ma­jor de­vel­op­ment plans.

To­geth­er, the events of No­vem­ber showed how de­ci­sions tak­en in se­cu­ri­ty, cul­ture, and de­vel­op­ment would in­ter­sect, leav­ing T&T nav­i­gat­ing un­cer­tain­ty at home while man­ag­ing pres­sure from forces be­yond its bor­ders.