Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says Gov­ern­ment is set to de­port some 200 Venezue­lans now in­car­cer­at­ed in T&T’s jails.

She al­so said the Coast Guard fa­cil­i­ties at Ce­dros are be­ing up­grad­ed and ves­sels are be­ing pro­vid­ed so that they can re­spond to hu­man and drug traf­fick­ing in our wa­ters.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has al­so blanked a call from Colom­bia’s Pres­i­dent Gus­ta­vo Petro for T&T to as­sist in the search for the re­mains of 11 al­leged Tren de Aragua mem­bers killed in a US Navy strike on a pirogue off Venezuela last week.

“That (boat which was de­stroyed) was not a civil­ian ves­sel. The drugs on that boat bring death to per­sons here, de­stroy fam­i­lies and ca­reers, frac­tures our so­ci­ety. Those drugs bring more death and de­spair than con­ven­tion­al weapons. We’re in a war against drugs and traf­fick­ing. There will be con­se­quences,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing Petro’s so­cial me­dia post on the is­sue.

“I much pre­fer see­ing drug and gun traf­fick­ers blown to pieces than see­ing hun­dreds of our cit­i­zens mur­dered each year be­cause of drug-fu­elled gang vi­o­lence.”

Petro’s con­cerns on T&T and Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sponse were the lat­est de­vel­op­ments aris­ing from the re­cent US mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment of war­ships and a nu­clear-pow­ered sub­ma­rine to the re­gion in its crack­down on drug car­tels in the South­ern Caribbean re­gion.

T&T is part of the US-led in­ter­na­tion­al coali­tion back­ing the crack­down on drug car­tels. Guyana, Ecuador, Paraguay and Ar­genti­na are al­so part of the ini­tia­tive, which is be­ing sup­port­ed by Be­lize.

Venezuela, how­ev­er, has deemed the US ac­tion a covert bid to over­throw the Nico­las Maduro-led gov­ern­ment and has mount­ed its own mil­i­tary pres­ence in coastal wa­ters.

Af­ter the strike on the ves­sel last Tues­day, the US claimed it was car­ry­ing drugs linked to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua crim­i­nal net­work. Per­sad-Bisses­sar sub­se­quent­ly made in­ter­na­tion­al head­lines for her strong sup­port of the Unit­ed States’ de­struc­tion of the boat.

Yes­ter­day, Colom­bian Pres­i­dent Petro post­ed con­cerns about the strike on his X so­cial me­dia ac­count. At­tached to it was a copy of CNC3’s re­port that To­ba­go fish­er­men were alarmed at the si­lence of To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine on the boat’s de­struc­tion, not­ing their own safe­ty con­cerns over go­ing out to fish.

Petro said, “It is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant that the Caribbean Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go search for the re­mains of civil­ians killed in the US bomb­ing of a civil­ian ves­sel. We don’t know if it was car­ry­ing drugs, and if it was, it shouldn’t have been bombed.

“The bomb­ing took place in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters. Did the is­land’s Gov­ern­ment give per­mis­sion? Life comes first, al­ways, every­where,” Petro chid­ed.

But in a re­sponse to this call, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “No, we will not waste re­sources to look for those bod­ies. Our Coast Guard re­sources will be utilised for the pro­tec­tion of our bor­der, not to look for dead drug traf­fick­ers. How­ev­er, if any car­cass wash­es up on our shores, we will re­cov­er it.”

She added, “The TTPS has in­creased their mon­i­tor­ing of il­le­gal im­mi­grants in­volved in drug and hu­man traf­fick­ing. We’re work­ing to up­grade the Ce­dros Coast Guard fa­cil­i­ty and have dis­patched more ves­sels to the area. Al­so, we’ll soon de­port about 200 Venezue­lans who are in our jails.”

The PM al­so is­sued pic­tures of a dis­patched TTCG ves­sel, which she said ar­rived off Ce­dros on Mon­day.

She added, “Our mi­grant pol­i­cy is in train, and this will help to re­duce il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion and traf­fick­ing. How­ev­er, it will not be le­nient to those who are here il­le­gal­ly and can­not pro­vide ver­i­fi­able in­for­ma­tion on how they have been earn­ing a liv­ing.”