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Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is com­ing un­der in­tense crit­i­cism from the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) over her sup­port for the de­ploy­ment of a US am­phibi­ous squadron and Navy de­stroy­ers to the south­ern Caribbean, part of Wash­ing­ton’s lat­est coun­ternar­cotics op­er­a­tion.

On Sat­ur­day evening, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Gov­ern­ment would per­mit US forces to en­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go if Venezuela at­tacked Guyana over the Es­se­qui­bo dis­pute. She al­so en­dorsed Wash­ing­ton’s mis­sion, though an­a­lysts cau­tion it could serve as a pre­text for mil­i­tary ac­tion against Cara­cas.

For­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne brand­ed her re­marks as “reck­less” and “sin­is­ter,” in­sist­ing that she had re­pu­di­at­ed her du­ty as prime min­is­ter of a found­ing Cari­com mem­ber state and as head of re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty with­in the bloc’s qua­si-cab­i­net. He warned that her stance un­der­mines both na­tion­al sov­er­eign­ty and Cari­com uni­ty and was at vari­ance with T&T’s for­eign pol­i­cy.