It is very un­for­tu­nate to see the Venezuela is­sue be­come a quag­mire for the gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

To all those who have even the slight­est in­ter­est in this seem­ing­ly in­ter­minable sto­ry, let us as­sume that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and com­pa­ny in­ten­tion­al­ly sold the fu­el to Venezuela (whether di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly).

There can be no doubt what­so­ev­er, that the gov­ern­ment felt it was con­duct­ing a fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tion in the coun­try’s in­ter­est.

Yes, con­sid­er­ing the threat of sanc­tions, if de­tect­ed, the ac­tion was risky. T&T there­fore found it­self in the pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion of hav­ing to thread a fine line be­tween ex­er­cis­ing its sov­er­eign­ty or seem­ing­ly giv­ing in to US pres­sure.

Quite sim­ply, the coun­try was caught in the mid­dle. It goes with­out say­ing, that it must have been an ag­o­nis­ing de­ci­sion.

Any­one who does not be­lieve that to be the case is not be­ing straight­for­ward.

Un­der nor­mal cir­cum­stances, the US would have is­sued a stern diplo­mat­ic note to the T&T gov­ern­ment, that fur­ther vi­o­la­tions could re­sult in sanc­tions be­ing im­posed. Qui­et diplo­ma­cy is al­ways a first op­tion, and it would have al­lowed the Row­ley gov­ern­ment to save face. That’s what diplo­mats do, and that’s the way con­tro­ver­sial is­sues are re­solved some­times be­tween coun­tries—un­less or un­til, things es­ca­late. This sit­u­a­tion should have been no dif­fer­ent.

But these are not nor­mal times. Dur­ing the past few months, the gov­ern­ment has had a lot more than Venezuela on its plate. It has had to nav­i­gate the ship through the per­ilous wa­ters of a glob­al pan­dem­ic, and from all in­di­ca­tions, it has earned ku­dos for suc­cess­ful­ly weath­er­ing the storm.

How­ev­er, while calmer wa­ters are fore­cast, a new storm has emerged that is threat­en­ing to wreck the ship. Con­fi­den­tial gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments about the Venezue­lan vis­it mys­te­ri­ous­ly end­ed up in the hands of UNC mem­bers.

In many oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions (in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States), an in­ves­ti­ga­tion would have been launched, and the source of the leak un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly un­masked. The cul­prit would have been charged with breach of trust and made to face the con­se­quences.

But, it seems that in T&T, such malfea­sance, like the leak­ing of per­son­al and con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion with im­puni­ty, is all par for the course. And that’s how we have found our­selves in this mess.

Whether it’s for po­lit­i­cal gain or some oth­er rea­son, the de­trac­tors seem hell bent on em­bar­rass­ing the gov­ern­ment over this mat­ter—even if it means shoot­ing our­selves in the foot.

The most re­cent de­vel­op­ment has the US Am­bas­sador—Joseph Mon­del­lo wrap­ping him­self in a cloak of virtue, and wad­ing in­to the po­lit­i­cal are­na of this coun­try.

Sure­ly Mr Mon­del­lo must know that this is an elec­tion year in T&T, and that the Venezue­lan is­sue is a very sen­si­tive one. So, when he makes a cal­cu­lat­ed de­ci­sion to throw Mr. Young un­der the bus, there must have been an agen­da.

It is no se­cret that the Unit­ed States finds Dr Row­ley to be in­tractable. Let’s be hon­est, the US does not like that. It is ac­cus­tomed to as­sert­ing it­self around the world, and al­ways hav­ing things its own way.

In pur­suit of its self-serv­ing ob­jec­tives, the US rou­tine­ly pres­sures and bul­lies its al­lies, while threat­en­ing and black­mail­ing all oth­ers with eco­nom­ic sanc­tions or mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion. This is not some out­landish state­ment, the record is there and it’s in­con­tro­vert­ible.

Tul­si Gab­bard, a US Con­gress­woman from Hawaii, was one of the can­di­dates seek­ing the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion for Pres­i­dent in No­vem­ber. She is known to be a strong ad­vo­cate for the cur­tail­ment of US in­volve­ment in for­eign wars, and in­ter­fer­ence in the in­ter­nal af­fairs of oth­er coun­tries. Joe Biden ul­ti­mate­ly won the nom­i­na­tion, and it is wide­ly ex­pect­ed that he will choose a woman as his run­ning mate. She could very well be the one.

In the mean­time, let us look at what US Am­bas­sador Mon­del­lo achieved, by go­ing pub­lic with his state­ment. Mr Young’s cred­i­bil­i­ty has tak­en a tremen­dous hit, even though he has been one of the hard­est work­ing Min­is­ters in the gov­ern­ment. The Prime Min­is­ter has been paint­ed in­to a cor­ner, with no face-sav­ing way out. And all the mag­nif­i­cent work done in com­bat­ing COVID-19, has been un­der­mined. All of these things have tak­en place, with an elec­tion right around the cor­ner. If this was not the Am­bas­sador’s in­ten­tion, then we are left to be­lieve that it was all just pure co­in­ci­dence.

As it stands, T&T is caught be­tween a rock and a hard place—fig­u­ra­tive­ly, ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly, eco­nom­i­cal­ly and po­lit­i­cal­ly.