Raphael John-Lall

Venezuela’s De­fence Min­is­ter, Gen­er­al Vladimir Padri­no López, has strong­ly con­demned the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go over re­cent state­ments by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said her ad­min­is­tra­tion would al­low the Unit­ed States to use T&T as a base if Venezuela at­tacked Guyana.

Speak­ing at a me­dia brief­ing in Cara­cas yes­ter­day, Padri­no López ac­cused T&T of align­ing it­self with Wash­ing­ton’s agen­da against Venezuela. His re­marks fol­lowed com­ments made on Sun­day, when he claimed that “Trinida­di­an mafias” were desta­bil­is­ing Venezuela through hu­man traf­fick­ing and oth­er il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.