Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says he will be meet­ing with the T&T Coast Guard soon to dis­cuss why Venezuela's Guardia Na­cional is be­ing al­lowed to pa­trol in ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters and at­tack lo­cal fish­er­men.

His com­ments came af­ter fish­er­man Mar­vin Far­ria was re­port­ed­ly shot at by the Guardia Na­cional while fish­ing in lo­cal wa­ters.

The in­ci­dent prompt­ed fish­er­men to call on Young to ex­plain why the Guardia Na­cional was not be­ing stopped from en­ter­ing T&T wa­ters and at­tack­ing them.

Speak­ing to the Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, Young said, “Trinidad and To­ba­go has not waived its sov­er­eign rights over our ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters. The al­le­ga­tions be­ing raised are se­ri­ous ones. As Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, I in­tend to dis­cuss these al­le­ga­tions of ac­tions tak­ing place in our ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard. There­after dis­cus­sions will be had with Venezuela, once war­rant­ed."

He de­nied the Coast Guard had prob­lems with fu­el sup­plies for their ves­sels.

"As far as I am aware there are no is­sues with the TTCG be­ing able to op­er­ate their ves­sels based on a lack of fu­el," he said.

Over the week­end, fish­er­men re­port­ed two sight­ings of the Guardia Na­cional in lo­cal wa­ters.

One fish­er­man said the Guardia Na­cional's armed in­ter­cep­tor ves­sel has been pa­trolling off the coast of Bonasse, Ce­dros since last Thurs­day. It was again seen in ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters off Green Hill, Ce­dros on Sat­ur­day.

He al­so said on Fri­day a Venezue­lan ves­sel trans­port­ing Venezue­lans to Trinidad cap­sized at sea while be­ing fol­lowed by the Guardia Na­cional.

A day lat­er, a Ce­dros fish­ing crew re­port­ed that they saw a group of Venezue­lans near the Sol­da­do Rock call­ing for help. They were in the wa­ter. The fish­er­man said they were afraid to ap­proach the for­eign­ers. A dis­tress call was made to the T&T Coast Guard ask­ing for as­sis­tance.

Coun­cil­lor for the area Shankar Teelucks­ingh said the bold pa­trols be­ing made by the Guardia Na­cional was sus­pi­cious and seemed to sug­gest that they have per­mis­sion to pa­trol in T&T's ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters.

Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles called on Young to ex­plain why, de­spite hav­ing 12 ves­sels, the T&T Coast Guard is nev­er avail­able.

He not­ed that six to sev­en fish­er­men were held by Venezue­lans with­in the past week and had to pay $15,000 each to se­cure their re­lease.

He added that last April the Guardia Na­cional en­tered ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters and took away three fish­er­men who were in­car­cer­at­ed in Venezuela for al­leged­ly fish­ing in Venezue­lan wa­ters.

"Af­ter this in­ci­dent, even work­ers at Trin­mar’s off­shore in­stal­la­tions ex­pressed fear for their safe­ty and re­fused to work. Though our wa­ters were in­vad­ed, the Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs (Den­nis Moses) did not for­ward a diplo­mat­ic note to the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment. The num­ber of re­port­ed in­ci­dents where our cit­i­zens are be­ing at­tacked and de­tained by Venezue­lans with our Coast Guard nowhere to be seen is be­com­ing alarm­ing.

A se­nior of­fi­cial of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty said the T&T Coast Guard had no re­ports of Venezue­lans strand­ed at sea or of the Guardia Na­cional pa­trolling lo­cal wa­ters.