Trinidad and Tobago’s Kamla Rap Sheet of Wrongs

By Wayne Kublalsingh  –  Jan 29, 2026

Many of our Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) officials are casting a long eye on Venezuela’s crude. But the Kamla Persad-Bissessar government has a rap sheet of wrongs against the Bolivarian Republic. With this rap sheet, how are we getting Venezuelan crude again?

On 23rd January 2019, Donald Trump posted the following on social media: “Today, I am officially recognizing the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as the Interim President of Venezuela.” Two days later, Mrs Persad-Bissessar, the then Leader of the Opposition rose in Parliament to effusively announce, “We’re preparing to join with the Venezuelan people and the free world in recognising Juan Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela.” 

No sooner had Trump spoken than the current PM rose to parrot his words. The US instigated an uprising to have the Bolivarian revolution replaced by Guaidó. The uprising failed. This was the first attempt by our PM to hitch herself to the Trump bandwagon for regime change in Venezuela. Like Trump, she invoked the China and Russian threat in Venezuela, and over T&T skies. Trump: “I told China and Russia that we don’t want to see them in Venezuela.” 

When the US deployed a full-fledged naval force North of Venezuela in August 2025, Persad-Bissessar declared her government’s full support. She referred to the Bolivarian government as “the Maduro regime”, as “narco-terrorists”. She broke ranks with CARICOM and CELAC in support of Trump. She categorically denied that the US fleet had any plans for regime change in Venezuela – it was all about narcotics busting. On January 3rd, the US forces invaded Venezuela, killed one hundred persons, including thirty-two Cubans, destroyed homes and military infrastructure, and kidnapped President Maduro and his wife, Dr Celia Flores. A decapitation exercise. The PM was plainly wrong. She lied or misled or deceived herself. 

Relatives of Civilians Killed in US Caribbean Missile Strikes Sue Trump Administration

In September 2025, when US troops began the extrajudicial killing of Venezuelan, Colombian and Trinidad citizens, she declared: “May God bless and protect the members of the US military…The US military should kill them all violently.” No interdiction, no search, no verification, no arrest, no case, no court, no charge or conviction. More than one hundred persons have since been killed. 

In December 2025, a Colombian family, assisted by the Colombia President, filed a complaint before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). It named US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth as the perpetrator, claiming that he “was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of Alejandro Carranza Medina and the murder of all those on such boats.” It also claims that Hegseth’s conduct was “ratified” by US President Donald Trump (CNN).

On 27th January, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a case in the US on behalf of two Trinidadians. It claims: “On October 14, 2025, the United States government authorized and launched a missile strike that killed Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo…These premeditated and intentional killings—carried out outside of the context of armed conflict and in circumstances where targeted individuals do not pose a concrete, specific, and immediate threat of grave harm—violate domestic law prohibiting murder and international law prohibiting extrajudicial killing, or the arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of the right to life. (Burnley v. US: Demanding Accountability on Caribbean Boat Strikes). 

What our PM callously impugned, the lives of our citizens, the ACLU has deemed sacred and taken legal responsibility for. The ACLU seems more Trini To De Bone than our PM. 

On 25th October 2025, the National Assembly of Venezuela declared that Persad-Bissessar was no longer welcome in Venezuela, having been declared “Persona Non Grata”, condemning her government for its support of the United States. On 25th November, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine arrived in Trinidad to meet with the PM. Gradually, we learnt that our PM had afforded the US our maritime, land and air space for its operations in Venezuela. 

She afforded them Crown Point in Tobago to erect a radar in support of these operations. She permitted the US use of our airports at Crown Point and Piarco for the refuelling and landing of aircraft. We know for sure now that these operations involved the kidnapping of Maduro and his wife, a decapitation exercise. Such kidnapping constitutes an act of war. Extrajudicial “kinetic” and “double tap” strikes, as they are euphemistically called, constitute murder. 

Today, Trump is seizing Venezuelan oil tankers and confiscating the oil. He has claimed for himself authority for who gets to drill in Venezuela. He has blockaded Venezuela. He is using the Venezuelan example to threaten both Cuba and Iran. Unabashedly, with impunity, he has unleashed his full-fledged imperialist fangs. 

Our PM has granted tacit support to Trump and his decapitation, forced transfer and imprisonment of the Venezuelan President and First Lady. Whatever her subjective delusions might be, objectively, she has aligned with imperialism. She has put imperialism, Trump, before the interests of Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. She has sold our sovereignty to Trump. She has rendered our Republic a vassal, by choice. And has unbolted latches for the US to force vassalage on our pre-Kamla energy-cooperative neighbour. 

Twice, in 2019 and 2026, our PM has called the US, like any US imperialist or puppet would, the “leader of the free world.” Why would the Venezuelan government want a hardcore US puppet as a cross-border gas-field partner? Or risk betrayal again? Or risk the chance of proceeds from its own crude being weaponized to undermine its economy and sovereignty? 

 

WK/OT