GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Venezuela has ac­cused Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Gov­ern­ment of be­ing un­der US con­trol and part of an ef­fort that could spark a full mil­i­tary con­fronta­tion against Venezuela. How­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment has un­der­scored the rea­sons for the vis­it of the USS Grave­ly and stressed that it val­ues the coun­try’s re­la­tion­ship with the peo­ple of Venezuela.

The Gov­ern­ment re­spond­ed last night af­ter Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez ac­cused Trinidad and To­ba­go of car­ry­ing out “‘mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es’” un­der US con­trol and claimed a “false flag at­tack” is un­der­way from wa­ters bor­der­ing T&T, which could gen­er­ate a con­fronta­tion against Venezuela.

The Venezue­lan Em­bassy is­sued the state­ment yes­ter­day. Venezuela de­clared that it does not ac­cept “threats from any vas­sal gov­ern­ment of the US.”

“We are not in­tim­i­dat­ed by mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es or war cries. The Bo­li­var­i­an Na­tion­al Armed Forces will re­main alert and mo­bilised in per­fect Pop­u­lar-Mil­i­tary-Po­lice union in the face of this very se­ri­ous provo­ca­tion.”

Venezuela’s state­ment came hours af­ter the USS Grave­ly ar­rived in T&T. The ship is sched­uled to re­main un­til Thurs­day. Mem­bers of the 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit (MEU) aboard the ship will con­duct train­ing with the T&T De­fence Force.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, at yes­ter­day’s brief­ing, de­tailed the ship and MEU’s ac­tiv­i­ties.

How­ev­er, Venezuela’s state­ment from Ro­dríguez, re­ceived sub­se­quent­ly, de­nounced an al­leged “mil­i­tary provo­ca­tion by Trinidad and To­ba­go in co­or­di­na­tion with the CIA to pro­voke war in the Caribbean.”

The com­mu­niqué stat­ed: “The Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela de­nounces be­fore the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty the dan­ger­ous car­ry­ing out of ‘mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es’ by the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go be­tween 26th and 30th of this month un­der the co­or­di­na­tion, fi­nanc­ing, and con­trol of the Unit­ed States South­ern Com­mand—an ac­tion that con­sti­tutes a hos­tile provo­ca­tion against Venezuela and a se­ri­ous threat to the peace of the Caribbean.

“Venezuela re­ports that it has cap­tured a mer­ce­nary group with di­rect in­for­ma­tion from the US in­tel­li­gence agency, CIA, and has been able to de­ter­mine that a false flag at­tack is un­der­way from wa­ters bor­der­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, or from Trinida­di­an or Venezue­lan ter­ri­to­ry it­self, which will gen­er­ate a full mil­i­tary con­fronta­tion against our coun­try,” the state­ment claimed.

The de­f­i­n­i­tion of a “false flag” op­er­a­tion is an act com­mit­ted with the in­tent of dis­guis­ing the ac­tu­al source of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and pin­ning blame on an­oth­er par­ty. The term al­so in­cludes coun­tries that or­gan­ise at­tacks on them­selves and make them ap­pear to be by en­e­my na­tions or ter­ror­ists, giv­ing the sup­pos­ed­ly at­tacked na­tion a pre­text for do­mes­tic re­pres­sion, for­eign mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion, or to en­gen­der sym­pa­thy.

Venezuela’s state­ment added that the planned ac­tion “per­fect­ly evokes the provo­ca­tion of the Bat­tle­ship Maine and the Gulf of Tonkin, which gave rise to the war against Spain to seize Cu­ba in 1898 and al­lowed the US Con­gress to au­tho­rise in­volve­ment in an eter­nal war against Viet­nam in 1964, from which they emerged de­feat­ed by the Viet­namese peo­ple af­ter fac­ing in­cal­cu­la­ble de­struc­tion and re­gret­table hu­man loss.”

“The Gov­ern­ment of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­nounced the sov­er­eign­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go to act as a mil­i­tary colony sub­or­di­nate to US hege­mon­ic in­ter­ests, turn­ing its ter­ri­to­ry in­to a US air­craft car­ri­er for war through­out the Caribbean against Venezuela, Colom­bia, and all of South Amer­i­ca,” the state­ment claimed.

It fur­ther ar­gued that by “fold­ing to Wash­ing­ton’s mil­i­taris­tic agen­da, Per­sad-Bisses­sar not on­ly in­tends to at­tack Venezuela, a coun­try that has al­ways main­tained a pol­i­cy of en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion, mu­tu­al re­spect, and Caribbean in­te­gra­tion, and break our his­toric bonds of broth­er­hood; she al­so vi­o­lates the Unit­ed Na­tions Char­ter, the procla­ma­tion of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace ap­proved by CELAC, and the prin­ci­ples of Cari­com, which pro­tect all peo­ples of the Caribbean.”

“These are not de­fen­sive ex­er­cis­es: this is a colo­nial op­er­a­tion of mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion that seeks to turn the Caribbean in­to a space for lethal vi­o­lence and US im­pe­r­i­al dom­i­na­tion.”

Venezuela said this pol­i­cy of “sur­ren­der and be­tray­al of the con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ples” of T&T has al­ready af­fect­ed cit­i­zens, claim­ing “in­no­cent fish­er­men have been vic­tims of ex­tra­ju­di­cial ex­e­cu­tions in the Caribbean Sea, re­veal­ing the re­pres­sive and crim­i­nal na­ture of the cur­rent gov­ern­ment, which fires on its own peo­ple un­der the call ‘kill them all’ and cel­e­brates that Trinida­di­ans are sum­mar­i­ly ex­e­cut­ed while open­ing the doors to mur­der­ous for­eign troops.”

Venezuela stat­ed it will al­ways de­fend its sov­er­eign­ty, ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty, and “right to live in peace against for­eign en­e­mies and its vas­sals.”

Not so, says Gov­ern­ment

Trinidad and To­ba­go pressed Venezue­lan of­fi­cials for proof of the “false flag at­tack,” whether in pho­tographs, doc­u­ments, or oth­er­wise, but was on­ly told that it had been brought to light yes­ter­day. There was no re­ply on what Venezuela would do as a re­sult.

There was al­so no re­ply from Per­sad-Bisses­sar to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions. How­ev­er, a state­ment is­sued by the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs was is­sued and al­so post­ed on the Prime Min­is­ter’s Face­book page.

It said the Gov­ern­ment not­ed Venezuela’s state­ment on the Grave­ly’s vis­it, adding that it has been clear about the spe­cif­ic pur­pose, as high­light­ed in state­ments from the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry and the US Em­bassy on Oc­to­ber 23 and 24, plus Sobers’ up­date yes­ter­day.

“The vis­it of the USS Grave­ly aims to bol­ster the fight against transna­tion­al crime and build re­silience through train­ing, hu­man­i­tar­i­an ac­tiv­i­ties, and se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion. It will al­so strength­en long­stand­ing part­ner­ships be­tween both coun­tries, which have pro­vid­ed med­ical care and dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness, im­proved lives, and strength­ened T&T com­mu­ni­ties.”

The state­ment added that this coun­try has re­peat­ed­ly made clear it val­ues its re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela, giv­en shared his­to­ry and close fra­ter­nal ties. The Gov­ern­ment al­so re­it­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to the peo­ple of the Caribbean for the cre­ation of a safer, stronger, and more pros­per­ous re­gion.

The US has been tar­get­ing what it calls drug-smug­gling boats in the Caribbean as it moves to cur­tail narc-traf­fick­ing. Since Sep­tem­ber 2, there have been 10 strikes in the re­gion, re­sult­ing in 43 deaths of sus­pect­ed drug smug­glers. Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar has voiced sup­port for the US ac­tions, say­ing T&T has been af­fect­ed by drug traf­fick­ing, which has led to vi­o­lent crime. She urged the US to “kill them all vi­o­lent­ly.”

Caribbean Bish­ops urge peace in re­gion

The Bish­ops of the An­tilles Epis­co­pal Con­fer­ence (AEC) have ex­pressed deep con­cern over the re­cent build-up of naval and mil­i­tary as­sets in the South­ern Caribbean, warn­ing that it could threat­en the re­gion’s so­cio-eco­nom­ic, po­lit­i­cal, and hu­man­i­tar­i­an sta­bil­i­ty.

The Bish­ops warned that the pres­ence of war­ships and the dis­rup­tion of ma­rine liveli­hoods pose im­me­di­ate threats to re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty and the wel­fare of Caribbean peo­ples. They urged na­tions to re­ject ag­gres­sion and in­tim­i­da­tion, em­pha­sis­ing that his­to­ry shows di­a­logue and co­op­er­a­tion are the most ef­fec­tive paths for­ward.