T&T embassy staff in Caracas safe, Sobers says

The Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs has con­firmed that all Trinidad and To­ba­go per­son­nel sta­tioned at the coun­try’s em­bassy in Cara­cas are safe and ful­ly ac­count­ed for.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions about their well-be­ing from Guardian Me­dia, Min­is­ter Sean Sobers said, “Since ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2:30 am on Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 3, the Head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mis­sion in Cara­cas has main­tained con­tin­u­ous con­tact with me and with se­nior of­fi­cials at the Min­istry.”

Sobers added, “All mem­bers of the Mis­sion are safe, se­cure and ful­ly ac­count­ed for. The Mis­sion con­tin­ues to pro­vide reg­u­lar brief­in­gs on the sit­u­a­tion in the cap­i­tal city.”

Cara­cas was at the cen­tre of an ex­tra­or­di­nary night-time mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion by the Unit­ed States which led to the cap­ture of Nico­las Maduro and his wife, Cil­ia Flo­res.

At ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2:00 am, res­i­dents of Cara­cas were wok­en by a se­ries of at least sev­en pow­er­ful ex­plo­sions and the sound of low-fly­ing air­craft.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s em­bassy is lo­cat­ed in the Venezue­lan cap­i­tal, and Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Unit­ed States strikes oc­curred be­tween four and ten kilo­me­tres from the diplo­mat­ic mis­sion.

While the Gov­ern­ment has not yet ap­point­ed an am­bas­sador to Venezuela, some­thing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has said is still in progress, the em­bassy is cur­rent­ly be­ing over­seen by Head of Chancery, Dayne-Marc Chin Slick.

Guardian Me­dia al­so sent fol­low-up ques­tions to Min­is­ter Sobers seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the num­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als sta­tioned at the em­bassy and whether any in­struc­tions have been is­sued for their re­turn. How­ev­er, the min­is­ter did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond.

Ear­li­er to­day, the Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so ex­pressed con­cern for peo­ple at the em­bassy in Cara­cas.

In a me­dia re­lease, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les said, “We have tak­en note of the Prime Min­is­ter’s three-line state­ment this morn­ing which made no ref­er­ence to the fact that Trinidad and To­ba­go has an em­bassy with staff in Cara­cas. We place on record our con­cern for the safe­ty and wel­fare of the staff and all T&T na­tion­als in Venezuela.”

This morn­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­knowl­edged the US mil­i­tary ac­tion in Venezuela, how­ev­er she said this coun­try played no part in it. Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­it­er­at­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to main­tain peace­ful re­la­tions with the peo­ple of Venezuela.

Maduro and Flo­res were tak­en from their home with­in the Fuerte Tiu­na mil­i­tary com­plex. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump de­scribed the res­i­dence as a “fortress” with steel doors and a “safe­ty space,” not­ing that Maduro was “bum­rushed” be­fore he could reach it.

They were tak­en by he­li­copter to the USS Iwo Ji­ma, a US war­ship cur­rent­ly in the Caribbean, and are be­ing trans­port­ed to New York.

US At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Pamela Bon­di con­firmed that the cou­ple has been in­dict­ed in the South­ern Dis­trict of New York. The charges against Maduro in­clude nar­co-ter­ror­ism con­spir­a­cy, co­caine im­por­ta­tion con­spir­a­cy and pos­ses­sion of ma­chine guns and de­struc­tive de­vices.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced that the Unit­ed States will “run” Venezuela tem­porar­i­ly.