Ministers Moses and Dillon: What are you doing for our Cedros fishermen?
Naparima MP Rodney Charles is asking whether Foreign and CARICOM Affairs Minister Dennis Moses and National Security Minister Edmund Dillon have both abandoned our Cedros fishermen and residents of the Peninsula in their hour of need, effectively leaving them to their own devices.
Like calypsonian Cro Cro, I keep calling but cannot get an answer.
When poor Mrs. Hermatie Sanker, a Cedros resident, went crying at the Cedros Coast Guard station for help for her husband and son who were kidnapped she was told some foolishness about contacting our Embassy in Caracas.
Minister Moses, characteristically sleeping on the job and as always waiting to be rescued by his friend PM Keith Rowley, has not effectively engaged Venezuelan authorities to patrol their section of Gulf of Paria to help reduce incidents of piracy against our fishermen.
Has Minister Moses considered raising the issue at least informally at the OAS seeking some resolution to the ongoing issue? Or at the very least instructing both our ambassadors to Venezuela and to the OAS to engage in quiet diplomacy with their Venezuelan counterparts? Is it in his DNA to be always reactive and appearing to be not in charge? Articles 24 to 27 of the OAS Charter speak to the peaceful resolution of issues between Member States.
Or is he mortally scared, given our slavish, one sided, support for the Maduro regime, to raise the issue using normal diplomatic channels. Or is it that he is unaware that he has a role to play in this matter?
His colleague Minister Dillon needs to be more proactively involved given reports of frequent kidnappings of our fishermen in our waters and thefts of their boats and fishing gear, unregulated arrivals of thousands of refugees from Venezuela, a growing barter trade involving guns and ammunition for food, an epidemic of human trafficking and resulting abuse of Venezuelans here in Trinidad, and poor conditions at our Immigration Detention Centre.
“I have visited the Cedros peninsula on many occasions and not once have I seen coast guard vessels patrolling our waters between Venezuela and Trinidad”. This in spite of the fact that one can at times see the entire area in question including the Venezuelan coastline. What is the role of the Coast Guard base in Cedros? Is it merely for decoration?
What is even more worrisome is the fact that these fishermen are his constituents and Minister Dillon is the line minister charged with the responsibility of addressing their issues.
It is becoming increasingly clear that this visionless PNM regime; characterized by no planning, a penchant for passing blame, cluelessness, and lacking in intellectual and managerial capacity; has pre-collapsed in office and is merely marking time until 2020. Ministers appear to be showing up for work merely to collect a salary.
This is indeed the most incompetent, intellectually bankrupt, government ever in our history characterized by OJT con men well versed in the art of old talk not backed up by performance whether it be on crime, diversifying our economy, creating jobs or protecting our fishermen.
Meanwhile our country suffers and a Haitianized future beckons. What evil have we committed to deserve this incompetent Rowley incarnation of the PNM?
Rodney Charles
Member of Parliament for Naparima