Raphael John-Lall

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro has called on Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens to pre­vent the Unit­ed States from "start­ing a war in the Caribbean."

"The mes­sage has been re­ceived. We have sent the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go the mes­sage that we are broth­ers. Let us unite for peace; do not al­low the Amer­i­cans to start a war in the Caribbean," Maduro said dur­ing a tele­vised com­mu­ni­ty event in the Cara Al Río Com­mune, in the Brisas de Petare sec­tor of Mi­ran­da state.

His state­ment comes amid ris­ing ten­sions and a pow­er­ful US mil­i­tary pres­ence in the Gulf of Paria, which is per­ceived as an at­tempt by US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump to force regime change in Cara­cas.

With the ar­rival of the US war­ship the USS Grave­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go on Sun­day, Maduro warned that “a tremen­dous pow­er of dig­ni­ty has emerged; mas­sive night­time march­es have been or­gan­ised in towns and mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties across the coun­try, from Delta Amacuro, through Su­cre, An­zoátegui, Nue­va Es­par­ta … the peo­ple are on their feet.”

He added: “The streets of Mar­gari­ta and Cumaná are filled with one voice: We want peace!"

With the T&T Gov­ern­ment cur­rent­ly sup­port­ing the US mil­i­tary buildup on the ba­sis that it is not fo­cused on regime change but rather elim­i­nat­ing drug car­tels, the Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent in­sist­ed that uni­ty is nec­es­sary for the de­vel­op­ment and pros­per­i­ty of both T&T and Venezuela.

How­ev­er, he blamed Amer­i­ca for sow­ing “dis­cord, in­trigue, ha­tred and xeno­pho­bia" to put neigh­bour­ing peo­ple, who have lived to­geth­er peace­ful­ly all their lives, in­to un­nec­es­sary con­flict.

Ear­li­er in the day and over the last few days, oth­er Venezue­lan lead­ers, in­clud­ing the May­or of Cara­cas Car­men Melén­dez, as well as oth­er lead­ers of Venezuela's rul­ing So­cial­ist Par­ty, held ral­lies where they con­demned T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for al­leged­ly caus­ing fric­tion in the re­gion.

The Trinida­di­an leader has al­so been de­clared per­sona non gra­ta by the au­thor­i­ties in Cara­cas.