Then-Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, received a portrait of Simón Bolívar from the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro in 2015. Photo: Wired 868/file photo.
By Macdonald Stainsby – Jan 20, 2026
Often times, the perfidy of the very vulnerable leaders of small island nations gets no mention in larger affairs of the planet at all. When their corruption is visible— such as how they are the only nations on the planet who regularly vote with the US at the UN for the continued starvation of Cuba, or when they allow imperialist military bases larger than their indigenous populations to occupy their lands— we often attribute these weak showings to them having “no choice” and essentially being property that still gets a national flag.
But you can’t quite go to that level of self-flagellation in Trinidad and Tobago. The twin island nation, while settled by slaves and indentured slaves primarily, T&T has become a republic and broken from the UK monarchy. They essentially have done even more to achieve independence than the giant white country I am from, Canada.
In 2010 just after Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada had hosted the Winter Olympics I visited Trinidad and Tobago for my first time. There had been a lot of working going on here in “Canada” to try to resist those Olympics on the basis of environmental policies around climate change, around land destruction in preparing for the Olympics, and in overriding indigenous sovereignty to allow for the full scale of the largest single celebration of sport on Earth.
Later that same year, in March, when I would venture to Trinidad and Tobago for the first time, I went there as I was doing anti tar sands work in general; In the T&T areas right near Caroni, Guapo, Vance River and most importantly, la Brea there’s the tar pits which also contain bitumen, which is much like tar sands from Canada, having a chance to go and see how these outcrops splash straight into the ocean I realized that, yes, indeed, these kinds of tar sands are the same type that get mined in northern Alberta and are slated for mass development in the Orinoco basin of Venezuela, as well as other places around the world, such as Russia, Madagascar and so on. Later research would suggest that the American giant Marathon sought this insanity on the southwestern coast of Trinidad.
The policies of environmental protection in Trinidad and Tobago are very, very seriously lacking; My first time near any of the processing plants in the south saw what appeared to be small rivers of oil, blackened crude long since displacing water and fish. One could easily submit similar disasters on the Islands, north to south, including the giant cancer causing flare over Sando.
But what I really learned there was just how corrupt things work on all directions for all parties in Trini politics, it seems everybody is always trying to find ways to be disingenuous with the others while accusing the same across the aisle. What I learned very quickly at the time was that the PNM was about to collapse and that a new politician now heading up the UNC coalition was going to be soon the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
Her name was Kamla Persad-Bissessar, and that 2010 campaign focused almost entirely on how Preston Manning was a corrupt man, who took bribes, payoffs and operated a nepotism party that shamed Trinis and stole their wealth. Kamla propsed to be the diffference maker then, and that person continues to be very important to this day in 2026.
In 2010, what I was able to learn was that the UNC was considered sort of left of center, not in any realistic way, but in the same way that the United States Democrats are, and the sort of right of center PNM is historically known to be more corrupt and nepotistic. However, that same right wing corrupt PNM is also the party that originated with the Eric Williams independence movement (even if they banned their own books), where they broke free of the Commonwealth and became a republic.
It is also the party that, when in power, is most interested in having actual equal relations with other countries, and has a foreign policy, if not a domestic policy that is based in sovereignty, respect and international peace that would become extraordinarily important at the beginning of this year, 2026.
During the fall of 2025 the United States built up what would be the largest military deployment in the Caribbean since the invasion of Panama to capture Manuel Noriega— along with burn or otherwise kill thousands of the working class people who lived near military bases in a small, dense country.
In 2025, seeing these gigantic armadas built up right on this coast of Venezuela and over 100 innocent fishermen from Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Ecuador and others including fishers from Trinidad and Tobago, mind you, being executed by drone strikes from the US with fake, unproven claims of drug dealing, these moves were designed to throw the Venezuelan Government off its kilter. So Kamla, ever loving the Empire, gave them full permission to use their territory to attack the brothers and sisters of T&T.
Kamla has coddled up to the same people who murdered Cubans to invade and overthrow the New Jewel Movement in Grenada, and now without a USSR anywhere in sight, she has helped make it so there’s absolutely no such thing as a guardrail, absolutely no such thing as a way to be held back in the prevailing years since my multiple visits to Trinidad and Tobago, starting in 2010 but going until 2013.
I did come to learn a bit more about the region itself, as well. I also first visited Bolivarian Venezuela at that time.
The Petrocaribe project started under PDVSA During the Chavez era, and continuing into the Maduro era from Venezuela, would ‘sell’ humongous amounts of oil to other Caribbean countries at below market rates with no interest for decades after the fact, as a straight up solidarity to have the resources to help develop themselves out of the enforced poverty that the Western white countries had built them up under for decades, if not centuries.
Petrocaribe had done tremendous amounts in helping build schools, clinics and helping advance human rights and basic housing policies and so on, in country after country throughout the Caribbean. During that same time, the Caribbean became a region and zone of peace. Every Caribbean African country signed upon a dotted line that the Caribbean would allow no military use. Would allow itself not to be transitioned for military purposes, would not allow itself to be occupied for military purposes. And under no circumstances would war of any type be permitted through the Caribbean.
All of those Caribbean countries have maintained that policy, with the exception of the aforementioned opportunistic Kamla Persad-Bissessar, what she has done has not just been to piss all over the standard of living of Trinidad and Tobago and to work with the white supremacist killer’s army from the north to attack the country that is loaded with Afro Venezuelans, as well as all sorts of the poorest people who have finally spoken their truth to power in front of the world.
She allowed her country to be used by the global slavecatchers, docking their aircraft carriers in Port of Spain and Chag.
But what we have now is Kamla Persad-Bissessar trying to help assassinate the country that created Petrocaribe, so that she and other elites from Trinidad and Tobago can reconquer the rest of the African Caribbean countries.
African Caribbean nations, historically, had to beg Trinidad and Tobago for resources as Trinidad and Tobago is the only country that was within reach and was not Venezuela, that had the resources and the oil and the gas to be able to help small, tiny, little islands like St Kitts and St Lucia and so on; By helping the Yanks destroy the legacy of Petrocaribe, by giving a military assistance and allowing the US military to fly their F16 from Piarco Airport into attack mode on Venezuela.
Trinidad and Tobago not only committed acts of war against Venezuela. They committed acts of economic sabotage against the rest of the Caribbean, which will now see lots of small children unable to go to school, unable to have their eyes treated, unable to see doctors and more.
And let’s go further, Trinidad and Tobago has also helped Venezuela have the oil that they send to Cuba cut off, and every single African in the Caribbean must note that Cuba has systematically been the reason that there has been a decent standard of living, from Grenada through to Puerto Rico through to Jamaica, etc. Doctors worked to provide help to Caribbean peoples, and received oil for these efforts.
There is no doubt that Cuba has been the hero of the region for more than 50 years, and they, too are now under attack.
Thank you to Kamala Persad Bissessar. She has not just violated the zone of peace. She has not just pissed all over Trinidad and Tobago’s record and word. She has not just destroyed the UNC’s idea of being democratic. She has done far, far, far worse than anything any PNM person could ever have possibly done, and I couldn’t care less for any of these corrupt parties:
Kamla Persad-Bissessar has helped re institute white supremacy across hundreds of millions of people, and the millions who descended from Africa right at the forefront.
She has helped the Yankees lower the standard of living in Cuba, which will lower the amount of aid relief received by other Caribbean peoples.
She has helped weaken the concept of international law, which small countries like the Caribbean need more than ever.
She had weakened the concept of human rights by not standing up to the US as they murder her own citizens in boats off the shore.
All of these horrible betrayals of the people’s trust will be justified as well:
“If we didn’t do that, they would come at us harder.”
Cabello Warns Trinidad Against Allowing US Attacks on Venezuela: ‘We Will Respond’
No one has ever, ever, ever defeated a bully by giving them everything they want. Trinidad and Tobago must arrest Kamla, ship her off to the Hague for great war crimes against not just Trinidad, but the entire Caribbean and Venezuela. The new government needs to issue apologies to every other Caribbean nation for breaking the peace and dividing their unity.
And apologize to the Venezuelan people themselves, and T&T needs to have a fresh set of elections to dump the UNC, where President Maduro of Venezuela can greet the new, democratically elected prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, one who is not corrupt helping the Americans take prisoners of war, but will walk in cooperation with Venezuela to provide the oil and gas necessary to the entire region, so any and all can develop independently of any empire.
