Ali­cia Llanos

Em­ploy­ees of the Venezue­lan Em­bassy were left con­fused yes­ter­day, af­ter their coun­try's na­tion­al flag was dis­cov­ered burnt and the em­bassy's com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tem de­stroyed.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors at the Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion said they were treat­ing the in­ci­dent, which oc­curred on the com­pound of the Venezue­lan Em­bassy, Vic­to­ria Av­enue, Port-of-Spain, as a case of ma­li­cious dam­age. A Venezue­lan man, who po­lice said was car­ry­ing a Chilean pass­port, was in­ter­ro­gat­ed short­ly af­ter the dis­cov­ery. The sus­pect, po­lice said, was stay­ing on the em­bassy's com­pound af­ter re­port­ed­ly be­ing thrown out from a Port-of-Spain ho­tel on Sat­ur­day for fail­ure to pay his bill. The fol­low­ing night, the man was ar­rest­ed out­side a Port-of-Spain restau­rant af­ter po­lice were called in when he re­port­ed­ly failed to pay.

The man then re­quest­ed to be tak­en to the em­bassy, say­ing he was seek­ing po­lit­i­cal asy­lum, po­lice said. Po­lice said em­bassy of­fi­cials, who ar­rived to work around 7.30 am yes­ter­day, dis­cov­ered the burnt flag and the elec­tri­cal wiring at the side of the build­ing ripped out. In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve the at­tack oc­curred on Sun­day night. One of­fi­cer said he be­lieved that was the first vi­o­lent act in­ci­dent at a lo­cal em­bassy. In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Venezue­lan's am­bas­sador, Maria Eu­ge­nia Mar­cano, said stars which were in­tro­duced to her coun­try's na­tion­al flag un­der pres­i­dent Hugo Chavez were de­lib­er­ate­ly burnt by a cig­a­rette. Mar­cano said she be­lieved the per­pe­tra­tors "want­ed to take the em­bassy out of ser­vice," point­ing at the com­plete­ly de­stroyed tele­phone and In­ter­net wiring.

Venezue­lan's gen­er­al elec­tion is ex­pect­ed to take place on Sep­tem­ber 26. Ac­cord­ing to Mar­cano, this was the first time that Venezuela's op­po­si­tion played "an ac­tive role" in its coun­try's pol­i­tics. Mar­cano said that the in­ci­dent had failed to in­stil fear in her and her col­leagues. She added the em­bassy stood unit­ed with T&T's Gov­ern­ment in the fight against crime. "We must stand unit­ed against all crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions." Mar­cano said. Say­ing she was "very sad and dis­ap­point­ed" by the in­ci­dent, Mar­cano said the em­bassy was forced to post­pone ac­tiv­i­ties planned for this week. She said she was heart­ened by the sup­port re­ceived from For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jat­tan Ram­bachan, who pledged his min­istry's re­sources to en­sure the per­pe­tra­tor was brought to jus­tice.

Eleono­ra Gue­vara, the em­bassy's trade as­sis­tant, con­firmed the sus­pect had sought po­lit­i­cal asy­lum. She, how­ev­er, ruled out that the man may have been re­spon­si­ble for the acts, say­ing he might have been a wit­ness in­stead. De­scrib­ing the burn­ing of the flag as "se­ri­ous," Gue­vara said: "Some­thing se­ri­ous has hap­pened here. We don't know who would have done this." Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Dr Su­ru­jat­tan Ram­bachan has ex­pressed con­cern over the at­tack and has as­sured the safe­ty of em­ploy­ees at the em­bassy. In a tele­phone in­ter­view, he said fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, he has dis­cussed with Mar­cano im­proved se­cu­ri­ty.

"We have pledged to do all we can do to en­sure the sup­port and safe­ty of all mem­bers of the em­bassy," Ram­bachan said. He said talks al­so were held with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Brigadier John Sandy fol­low­ing which ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures would be im­ple­ment­ed. "Min­is­ter Sandy as­sured me that all his of­fi­cers were in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter and all steps were be­ing tak­en to se­cure the em­bassy and the am­bas­sador," Ram­bachan said.