T&T backs US attack on Iran

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

The Gov­ern­ment has come out in full sup­port of the Unit­ed States at­tack on Iran yes­ter­day, which, ac­cord­ing to Is­rael and US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, left Iran’s Supreme Leader dead.

In a state­ment is­sued af­ter 8 pm last evening from the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, it said, “The Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs wish­es to ex­press its sup­port for the con­tin­ued ac­tions of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca aimed at pre­vent­ing op­pres­sive regimes from ac­quir­ing nu­clear weapons ca­pa­bil­i­ties that would jeop­ar­dise in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty. The pro­lif­er­a­tion of such weapons is a grave threat to the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty.”

That state­ment came four hours af­ter one was first post­ed on Face­book around 4 pm by the min­istry, and then re­tract­ed. That post was left up for at least an hour.

In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Sean Sobers said the re­lease was re­tract­ed be­cause the Gov­ern­ment was “still as­sess­ing the sit­u­a­tion”, adding that an­oth­er state­ment would be is­sued.

The sec­ond state­ment saw the re­moval of the term “al­lies” and al­so ex­pressed sym­pa­thy for the loss of life.

“The min­istry ex­press­es sym­pa­thy for all loss of life due to events oc­cur­ring in the Mid­dle East and reaf­firms our sup­port for the peace­ful ex­is­tence for all per­sons.”

It added that the min­istry stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with “our broth­ers and sis­ters in the Gulf, in­clud­ing those in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia, King­dom of Bahrain and State of Qatar who have come un­der at­tack.”

But in re­sponse to the re­tract­ed state­ment, for­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne de­scribed the com­ments as an­oth­er shame­ful ac­tion by the Gov­ern­ment.

“Every time we think we’ve seen the worst pos­si­ble out­put and rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the na­tion from this UNC Gov­ern­ment, they then pro­ceed to take our na­tion to a new lev­el of shame. Our For­eign Pol­i­cy has been re­duced to purile sub­servience, with hasty of­fi­cial pub­lic re­leas­es that are def­i­nite­ly not the prod­uct of in­tel­li­gent minds.”

He added that the at­tacks came with­out any Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil au­tho­ri­sa­tion, la­belling it a “new low” for a min­istry and a Gov­ern­ment that has made it abun­dant­ly clear that they have no re­gard what­so­ev­er for In­ter­na­tion­al Law, for the UN Char­ter, for Cari­com, and for the views of the pop­u­la­tion that they were elect­ed to serve.

“All over the world, our diplo­mats and of­fi­cials are bow­ing their heads in shame at the de­mo­li­tion of stan­dards that we are wit­ness­ing on a dai­ly ba­sis. To­day was a ter­ri­ble day for those who place val­ue on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion and pres­tige as a na­tion.”

He crit­i­cised “the sad re­al­i­ty” that our tax dol­lars are pay­ing the salaries of the Cab­i­net, adding that “it is clear that this Gov­ern­ment is im­pov­er­ished with re­gard to in­tegri­ty, pru­dence, diplo­ma­cy, and com­pe­tence.”

Mean­while, Sobers, in a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, said the at­tack against Iran and the sub­se­quent re­tal­i­a­tion did not cause any in­jury to na­tion­als in neigh­bour­ing coun­tries across the Gulf re­gion, in­clud­ing those in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, Sau­di Ara­bia and Qatar, among oth­er coun­tries.

“So, so far, there are no re­port­ed fa­tal­i­ties or in­juries by any of our na­tion­als. All of them are ad­her­ing to the coun­tries with­in which they live. The in­struc­tions that are be­ing giv­en and they are es­sen­tial­ly hun­kered down, and they are quite well. We’ve had no neg­a­tive re­ports from our na­tion­als, and we’re quite pleased about that,” Sobers said.

Na­tion­als were al­so ad­vised to reg­is­ter with the Gov­ern­ment’s Reg­is­tra­tion Sys­tem for Na­tion­als Abroad, en­sure trav­el doc­u­ments are valid and iden­ti­fy the near­est emer­gency shel­ter should con­di­tions wors­en. The min­istry fur­ther en­cour­aged cit­i­zens to for­mu­late con­tin­gency plans for de­par­ture where per­son­al safe­ty may be at risk.

Sobers ex­plained that the min­istry had ac­cess to all the What­sApp group chats for Tri­nis in Qatar, with the High Com­mis­sion in both Lon­don and In­dia al­so hav­ing ac­cess to the group chats for di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion to ad­dress any con­cerns.

The Unit­ed States and Is­rael launched a ma­jor at­tack on Iran yes­ter­day, trig­ger­ing re­tal­ia­to­ry mis­sile and drone strikes by Iran to­wards Is­rael and US mil­i­tary bases across the re­gion. Ac­cord­ing to Iran­ian state me­dia, cit­ing the Red Cres­cent, at least 201 peo­ple were killed, and more than 700 were in­jured as ex­changes of fire con­tin­ued in­to the night.

Iran­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araghchi de­scribed the at­tack as “un­pro­voked, il­le­gal and ab­solute­ly il­le­git­i­mate.” US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump post­ed on so­cial me­dia that Ali Khamenei was killed, which has yet to be in­de­pen­dent­ly con­firmed. He post­ed on Truth So­cial: “Khamenei, one of the most evil peo­ple in his­to­ry, is dead,” adding that it is the “sin­gle great­est chance for the Iran­ian peo­ple to take back their coun­try.”

Econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James said the con­flict can be pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive for the coun­try, with more neg­a­tives than pos­i­tives.

“That will be a cost in­crease, pri­mar­i­ly a cost-in­creas­ing ef­fect. Al­though there is a lit­tle bit of a sil­ver lin­ing in the sense that Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um pro­duces some bar­rels of oil, which we will ex­port, and so you will get some gains from that. But the much larg­er fac­tor would be that you im­port most of your oil prod­ucts, and there­fore that cost is go­ing to go up.”

He added that if this con­flict in­creas­es oil and gas prices above US$78 a bar­rel, then the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund would ben­e­fit. He said it should be close­ly mon­i­tored.

“In ad­di­tion to that, of course, the ship­ping costs or move­ment of prod­ucts in­to the coun­try, that could be af­fect­ed”, James said.

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj said it was too ear­ly to say what, if any, po­lit­i­cal im­pact would be felt lo­cal­ly from the con­flict.