Akash Sama­roo

Scores of Venezue­lan na­tion­als were strand­ed at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port last night af­ter a repa­tri­a­tion flight that was due to ar­rive in T&T from Venezuela was blocked from com­ing.

The air­craft be­longed to Con­vi­asa, a Venezue­lan State air­line that has been sanc­tioned by the Unit­ed States.

The 97 Venezue­lan na­tion­als were forced to sleep at the air­port as a re­sult.

“What is the prob­lem? Nine­ty-sev­en peo­ple are here, peo­ple with can­cer, el­der­ly peo­ple, chil­dren. They sold all their things and now peo­ple have nowhere to go,” said one of the few Eng­lish-speak­ing mem­bers of the group at the air­port.

The group said that for months they had been li­ais­ing with this coun­try’s Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry to re­turn home.

“(Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty) Stu­art (Young) say yes, every­thing is in or­der. Why use to­day, the day the flight was sup­posed to go to Venezuela to say we can’t go?” an­oth­er Eng­lish-speak­ing Venezue­lan na­tion­al shout­ed.

A Venezuelan national sits on his luggage at the Piarco International Airport where he was one of a group of Venezuelans due to take a repatriation flight back home yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

A state­ment by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty said that the Gov­ern­ment of Venezuela had made the re­quest for the repa­tri­a­tion flight and that pre­lim­i­nary ap­proval was grant­ed by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry as the flight was seen as a hu­man­i­tar­i­an ef­fort.

The state­ment said when the de­tails were pro­vid­ed by the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment it was dis­cov­ered that the air­line, Con­sor­cio Vene­zolano de In­dus­trias Aeronáu­ti­cas y Ser­vi­cios Aére­os (Con­vi­asa), was un­der a US sanc­tion.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly in those cir­cum­stances, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty could not grant ap­proval for the air­craft to come to Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the re­lease said.

The min­istry said the re­quest from Venezuela came in the “past week.”

How­ev­er, the Venezue­lan na­tion­als claim the min­istry knew that it was a Con­vi­asa flight all along.

“The Gov­ern­ment al­ways said it was a Con­vi­asa flight. All flights to Venezuela is Con­vi­asa.”

The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry said it has reached out to the US Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain “to seek guid­ance”.

The min­istry said it will work with the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs “with re­spect to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a fu­ture repa­tri­a­tion ex­er­cise by the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment”.

One Venezue­lan na­tion­al has claimed that many in the group gave up their apart­ments and jobs in an­tic­i­pa­tion of re­turn­ing home and that some even sold their mo­bile phones to pay for their PCR COVID-19 tests.

“I am now in the street. I am preg­nant with two kids I gave up my job and now I don’t know what to do, what is be­ing put in place for us?”

Some of the Venezuelan nationals and members of the media at the Piarco International Airport.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

US sanc­tion against Con­vi­asa

On Feb­ru­ary 7, 2020, the US De­part­ment of Trea­sury is­sued the fol­low­ing state­ment re­gard­ing the sanc­tion against Venezuela’s State air­line.

“The US De­part­ment of the Trea­sury’s Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) to­day iden­ti­fied the Venezue­lan state-owned air­line Con­sor­cio Vene­zolano de In­dus­trias Aero­nau­ti­cas y Ser­vi­cios Aere­os, S.A. (Con­vi­asa) as sub­ject to sanc­tions as part of the Gov­ern­ment of Venezuela, pur­suant to Ex­ec­u­tive Or­der (E.O.) 13884.

To­day’s ac­tion al­so iden­ti­fies the Con­vi­asa fleet of air­craft as blocked prop­er­ty of the Gov­ern­ment of Venezuela pur­suant to E.O. 13884. Con­vi­asa and its fleet have been blocked since the is­suance of E.O. 13884 of Au­gust 5, 2019, and to­day they have been added to the OFAC’s Spe­cial­ly Des­ig­nat­ed Na­tion­als List to en­sure strength­ened com­pli­ance with US sanc­tions.

“The il­le­git­i­mate Maduro regime re­lies on the Venezue­lan state-owned air­line Con­vi­asa to shut­tle cor­rupt regime of­fi­cials around the world to fu­el sup­port for its an­ti-de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ef­forts,” said Sec­re­tary Steven T. Mnuchin.

“The Trump Ad­min­is­tra­tion will not al­low Maduro and his prox­ies to con­tin­ue steal­ing from the Venezue­lan peo­ple and abus­ing state-owned as­sets to ad­vance their own cor­rupt and desta­bil­is­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.”

Con­vi­asa op­er­ates as a com­mer­cial air­line based in Cara­cas, Venezuela, fly­ing both do­mes­tic routes as well as pro­vid­ing ser­vice to se­lect in­ter­na­tion­al lo­ca­tions.

This ac­tion does not pre­vent the abil­i­ty of the Venezue­lan peo­ple to trav­el, as they can con­tin­ue to trav­el on var­i­ous oth­er car­ri­ers not sub­ject to OFAC sanc­tions. Rather, this ac­tion is in­tend­ed to cur­tail the Maduro regime’s mis­use of the air­line.

For in­stance, the Maduro regime has com­man­deered Con­vi­asa’s air­craft to pro­mote its own po­lit­i­cal agen­da, in­clud­ing shut­tling regime of­fi­cials to coun­tries such as North Ko­rea, Cu­ba, and Iran.”

Venezuelan nationals who were to return home yesterday, listen to information about their flight which was cancelled.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Venezuelan nationals carry their laggage wait at the check in area at the Piarco International Airport where they were to take repatriation flight back home yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ