By Raffique Shah
June 07, 2025

I hope and expect those in authority who have the powers, to act, if the need arises, to remove a sitting prime minister and government by whatever means it takes to save our country from what appears to be a spark of madness which is threatening to engulf us even as I write (Friday night). Because after I listened to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar a few nights ago, when I heard what she said, I scrutinised her image on television to see if I could discern any signs of insanity or dementia. I leave that for the experts to work on.

But I insist something is very wrong inside her head because there she was, on a normal day in the office, working up a storm out of a few minor events that ordinarily would trigger hardly a ripple.

Now I should say here that when President Maduro of Venezuela earlier on claimed that some Colombian military personnel—or maybe they were personnel looking that way—were captured by Venezuelan forces and interrogated, his security forces were convinced the captives were headed to Venezuela with mal-intent. I did wonder why he had not raised the issue of their alleged Trinidadian connections with our Prime Minister before going public with it.

I thought there was only one reason that breach of protocol occurred. Based on everything she has said on Venezuela since 2015, it might well be that her new Government and Caracas are not “a phone call away”, as obtained when the previous government held office.

Whatever the tension between Caracas and Port of Spain, nothing that any high Venezuelan official said justified the threats that PM Kamla made to the Venezuelans. These were startling. She warned President Maduro that any vessel found in Trinidad waters that is not identified as being friendly will meet with the full force that we will unleash on them.

Such clear threats made in an environment in which there is tension—that has been created in large measure by the Americans, what with their sanctions that prohibit all countries from trading with Venezuela—means all it takes for hell to follow is for someone on either side of this showdown to fire first. Hell, even a misfire will do.

I do not think our PM is mad. She must have some very strong reasons for taking what seems like a “storm in a teacup” where switches and other controls keep the neighbouring countries apart in a very delicate way. At any time a mistake from a finger or the lips could cause all hell to break loose, with deadly consequences.

I do not believe that is what our PM wants. I think she has a mind that keeps her continuously looking to make the news headlines with outrageous claims and antics.

What she is after most of all is grabbing the front pages and headlines of the big international news media that will feature photographs of the diminutive but bedecked lady causing an exchange of fire or some other incident in which lives are lost and she gets her five minutes of fame.

That is what the lady is looking for. She is blissfully unaware that those few moments of glory for her could easily spell death to real people from the Caribbean or Venezuela. And, very often in our past history when such situations arose, the anointed one who is riding a wave across the globe, albeit for five minutes, knows or cares nothing about the consequences.

This is not the first time in history the Caribbean has been caught up in a volatile confrontation that has left many of our people dead. I think it was in 1983 that the Grenada Revolution, led by Maurice Bishop and Bernard Coard, imploded. Many Grenadians would die in order to justify landing American troops in the Caribbean. The then-American president Ronald Reagan used Eugenia Charles (prime minister of Dominica) as the key.

When she made it to the White House for a one-on-one meeting with president Reagan, she betrayed her limited knowledge of anything Caribbean. One of the Bradshaws of Antigua’s politics also got a morning show exposure on some other trivial issue. What they don’t know is that these news anchors on these popular shows get their fun off them.

Trinidad and Tobago going to war with Venezuela would be akin to “the ass in the lion’s skin”—or more appropriately, “the mouse that roared”.

This country’s armed forces in no way compares with Venezuela’s. They possess bigger forces, better arms and ammunition, and highly trained personnel, all of whom are motivated to defend their country with their lives.

We have nothing to fight over with Venezuela.