Look at the Whole Picture

MY RESPONSE TO THE QUESTION, INFLUENCED BY DISTRACTIVE PROPAGANDA - ‘HOW MUCH OF THESE CHILDREN ARE YOU WILLING TO TAKE?:
“How easily you are taken into a direction of trying to turn this issue into a matter of individuals when the issue is a matter of how the State is dealing with its responsibilities and much more.
Whether I (or any other individual citizen) am personally willing to accommodate a migrant child is a skillful deflection from the issue of what is the Government and the State apparatus doing about its duty to the nation to secure its borders and to treat with illegal immigrants in a civil and humane manner as part of its duty to the nation and international relations.
The US is using its ‘might is right’ imperial power to try and impose its ‘regime change’ strategy on Venezuela and the Venezuelan People.
As part of its strategy it is using economic embargo and seizure of Venezuelan assets, military build-up across the border in Colombia, in the Caribbean Sea, etc and the threat of military intervention all as part of its imperialist strategy.
The migrant issue is connected with and part of the US interventionist policy.
Trinidad and Tobago has resisted US pressure to join a few Caribbean leaders in becoming supporters of the US intervention in Venezuela.
It is vital that the People of Venezuela resolve the internal issues within their country without outside interference.
It is important that they resist the US interventionist pressure to impose an illegal regime acceptable to Washington.
Trinidad and Tobago and its People must unite with and support the Venezuelan People in their fight for self-determination and against foreign intervention.
As part of this unity and support the Government of Trinidad and Tobago must continue to resist the US pressure to support its interventionist strategy against Venezuela.
Our Government and nation must also continue to treat with Venezuelan migrants in a principled and humane manner.
We must continue to work with the Venezuelan authorities and People to address the issues of protection of the borders and immigration by close and organized cooperation.
The situation is not uncomplicated.
However, the side issue of how we treat with children must not be allowed to become a distraction from the fundamental underlying issues of the unity and solidarity of the People of Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago and the entire region to prevent our region from becoming a zone of imperial intervention rather than the Zone of Peace that CARICOM has declared.
This is a situation that requires us to think much more broadly than whether we support the PNM or a PNM government; or whether this or that individual is willing to accommodate a Venezuelan migrant child.
To focus on such matters or in that way plays into the hands of the dangers of imperial interventionist strategy and dividing, rather than strengthening the unity of the People of Venezuela and T&T.
We need to grasp all the complications of this situation and continue together to find the way forward in our relations between our countries and peoples.”.

Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal
​27 November 2020

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