
GERALD RAMDEEN
WINSTON Churchill said “the price of greatness is responsibility.” No greater sign of greatness could be envisaged than the response of our Prime Minister to the allegations of our Venezuelan neighbours that people entered their country from TT with the intention to destabilise the country.
The statements that emanated from our territorial neighbour were led by President Maduro and the Minster for Interior Justice and Peace, Diosdado Cabello Rondón. Our Prime Minister declared without reservation that TT was off limits to Venezuela and any attempt at incursion into this jurisdiction will be met with deadly force.
This declaration was met with calls for diplomacy by public commentators, a former leader of the COP, members of the opposition, a Caribbean prime minister, and our former prime minister, who having awoken from his slumber asked, “What happened to diplomacy?”
I suggest that those urging the Prime Minister to engage in diplomacy take the time to read the superseding indictment filed in the Southern District of New York that charged Nicolás Maduro Moros and Diosdado Cabello Rondón, as well as Venezuela’s minister of defence and its chief Supreme Court justice with:
1. Participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy, which carries a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life in prison.
2. Conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, which carries a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life in prison.
3. Using and carrying machine guns and destructive devices during and in relation to, and possessing machine guns and destructive devices in furtherance of, the narco-terrorism and cocaine-importation conspiracies, which carries a 30-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life in prison.
4. Conspiring to use and carry machine guns and destructive devices during and in relation to, and to possess machine guns and destructive devices in furtherance of, the narco-terrorism and cocaine-importation conspiracies, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
For the past nine years our country was led by an administration that was prepared to wine and dine with people on narco-terrorism charges. Those same people are asking the question today, “What happened to diplomacy?” I want to ask what happened to good sense over the past nine years? What happened to sensible and responsible leadership?
One must not forget that the very regime with which the opposition urges diplomacy is currently engaged in an aggressive territorial dispute with our goodly neighbour and historical regional ally, Guyana, whose government has had to, in response to veiled threats to invade their territory, lay down a comparable zero tolerance approach.
Our Prime Minister’s response underscores her foresight and no-nonsense attitude towards the inception of a similar threat. It is unsurprising that the PNM’s mantra has been diplomacy; its willingness to engage with the Maduro regime has been the subject of controversy throughout the last decade, all ultimately ending with the abject failure of the Dragon gas deal and a mysterious waste of taxpayers’ money.
While the PNM seemingly embraces Venezuela and the threat of sanctions that such an alliance no doubt attracts, our Prime Minister’s response has been a bold and unwavering strive to nip it in the bud.
The conduct of the former administration and its embrace of the regime in control of Venezuela is not surprising. Its record speaks volumes. On September 6, 2006, then prime minister Patrick Manning held a “peace” meeting with gang members at Crowne Plaza. Manning previously met in 2002 with other gang leaders at the Ambassador Hotel. The 2006 meeting, organised by the Laventille executive council, created a peace pact called “It Must Work.” It did not work! Within two years, 16 known gang members had been killed, four of whom attended the meeting.
On January 10 the Biden administration offered a US$25 million bounty for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Maduro and Diosdado Cabello Rondón. The former administration was prepared to play Russian roulette with the future of our republic with the Maduro regime while these charges were pending and the bounty existing. Thank God an end has been brought to this wanton reckless and irresponsible behaviour.
As a country we should be thankful that we have a prime minister that boldly defends our sovereignty. We should be proud that we have a prime minister that seeks to associate the actions of her government, in relation to Venezuela, with that of the US, the EU, Canada and the UK.
The Maduro regime has been the cause of the suffering of the Venezuelan people, many of whom fled their homeland to TT and neighbouring countries in fear of persecution by their government. Those who call for diplomacy are either ignorant and uninformed or are prepared to associate our country with a regime charged with narco-terrorism.
The country rejected this form of leadership on April 28. As a people we can be assured that our Prime Minister will defend our country, uphold the rule of law, will never bow to the threats of others, or “duck and run.”
Above all, we should be grateful that our Prime Minister’s statements reflect the values of the Trinidadian/Tobagonian spirit: that though our country may be small, we are not to be trifled with, and we will not be bullied. Like Churchill who laid down the will of the British people in response to doom and gloom of an impending invasion from Nazi Germany, our Prime Minister has from an early stage made the will of our people clear: “We shall never surrender.”
Trinidad and Tobago Newsday