As the US signalled a build-up of its naval forces near Venezuela in the south Caribbean Sea last week, Venezuelan migrants who fled the country amid economic hardship over the past decade and settled in Trinidad and Tobago are viewing a potential military escalation between the two with optimism.
According to migrant advocate and head of the La Romaine Migrant Support group (LARMS) Angie Ramnarine, the US move has been welcomed by a community eager to return to their homeland and filled with nostalgia for a country that once sought their own interests.
They have been praying for this kind of intervention for a long time, Ramnarine, who has spent the past five years running the programme out of the St Benedicts Church in La Romaine, told the Express in an interview on Saturday.
For the migrant population it represents hope, whereas for the diplomats it may be a mixture or viewed as infringement of sovereignty. The average Venezuelan will not think of things like sovereignty. They are thinking of going back to a safe, prosperous society again, even if they have to work to rebuild it, she added.
Last week the Pentagon began moving US Navy assets, including warships, into the Caribbean regiona move which officials from US President Donald Trumps administration have said was part of an effort to stop drugs from flooding into the country.
In a televised address on Monday, Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro pledged to mobilise more than four million militia fighters in response to the US warships, saying they will be prepared, activated and armed.
He called on Latin American and Caribbean nations to unite and defend Venezuelas right to sovereignty, peace and self-determination.
But according to Ramnarine, many of the migrants who fled their country and landed in Trinidad to escape its harsh economic climate in the past years believed Maduro was responsible for their displacement.
After Chavez, the country went into decline and even though they were supposed to be following a socialist model...You have had years of political and economic mismanagement which forced the migration of over seven or eight million Venezuelans out of their country. They themselves are being outcast because of that, and they have had to leave their country.
Imagine a country as rich as Venezuela, you couldnt get food, you couldnt get fuel, and all kinds of things. Everything has collapsed, the health and education sectors, institutions. So, they see him (Maduro) as the problem, and they say he showed no willingness to improve the country, and they do not believe the elections are fair, it was so evident in the elections last year, in spite of all the foreign observers, she said.
Push factors
Ramnarine said migrants are also reeling from the effects of our local economy and struggling to pay high rents.
(Rent) is eating up their income. They are finding it harder to send back money to their families at home. They may be on the move to greener pastures, but they carry this memory and nostalgia for their home country as a place they would eventually like to return to. They basically want a society that serves their interests again. It is only natural, she said.
Asked if she believed the country was prepared for a potential influx of migrants should tensions escalate, Ramnarine said she did not believe so. She said in such an event, it was likely the Government would move to better secure the countrys borders.
We arent prepared, and it could be one of the several possible outcomes of that kind of intervention, but I feel if there is an intervention like that, we will move seriously to close our borders and make sure our borders cannot take any more.
Directly or indirectly, we may have the aid of the Americans on our coastlines as well. Once a country is at war, if it turns out to be that, it is a push factor for migration. People migrate for any combination of a number of reasons and war, famine, food shortages are all push factors, she said.
Could be like Dubai
Venezuelan activist Yesenia Gonzalez similarly told the Express on Saturday that the local migrant population felt hopeful, as they have been calling for international intervention in the past.
She said many had grown frustrated with the condition of a country they believed could be a valid contributor to the international system, and even to the local economy of Trinidad and Tobago.
Everybody is happy and basically we are fed up with the current state of things. For many years, we wanted some kind of intervention. One dollar US is a salary in Venezuelahow could that be?
There is suffering in Venezuela and starvation, and when you look at the pictures posted and they show Venezuela and people say it is looking good, but if you look at the countryside, it is very sad, she said.
We see Venezuela turning into a country like Dubai, where we will have facilities, we will have everything because democracy will be back. Socialism is dying. I dont know if it will get worse...Venezuela could be a very prosperous county, with a greater relationship with foreign countries.
For instance, the only way Trinidad will come out of an economic crisis, the only country that will make Trinidad bounce back is Venezuela because of the oil, she added.
Gonzalez, however, said she was concerned, as the situation had the potential to get out of hand.
We have to be very careful with how we deal with it because in war, things get bad and worse. You cant be sending people back to Venezuela to get killed, you have to protect those people, she added.
