generalspeaking

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Venezuela Imploding and Reverberations in the Caribbean

"We be lookin' for our red fish as normal, think' they be fishin', too. They be needin' help?"
"Then we knowin'. They be pirates."
"The man talkin' Spanish, he point the gun at me, then he point at the water. I be knowin'. He be wantin' that I jump."
"I had already reached the rig, so I had to be jumpin' back in, to help him [another crewman suffering a cramp]."
"He was goin' to be drownin'."
Jimmy Lalla, 36, Asheena fishing boat crewman, Trinidadian waters

"They said they would take the boat and that everyone should jump overboard. I tried to keep my head above water so I could get air."
"I drank a lot of salt water. I looked to the stars and moon. I just hoped and prayed."
Deonarine Goberdhan, 47, Guyanese fishing boat

"This reminds me of how the problems started off the coast of eastern Africa [with Somali pirates]."
"What we're seeing -- the piracy, the smuggling -- it's the result of Venezuela's political and economic collapse."
Roodal Moonilal, lawmaker, United National Congress, Trinidad

Image: Children play "pirates" on a fishing boat

In this photo, children play "pirates" on a fishing boat in Cumana, Sucre state, Venezuela. "You hear piracy and you think of guys robbing container ships in Africa. But here it's just poor fishermen robbing other poor fishermen," said Sucre lawyer Luis Morales. "It's the same kind of crime we've seen in the streets, but spreading to the sea. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)Rodrigo Abd / AP

Muggings on the high seas, threats, murder, looting, boats captured, crews told to swim or sink. Four Guyanese fishing boats 40 kilometres off the coast of Guyana were exposed to the new dangers lurking in the waters they all ply to make their living as fishermen. The survivors of the crews of those four boats describe being doused with hot oil, of being hacked with machetes, thrown overboard, their boats stolen. Most of the crew members died, or have been declared missing. Twenty managed to live to tell about their ordeal.

Close to Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti and St. Lucia, piracy on the high seas has been reported over the past year and a half. The surge in piracy has its epicentre off the coast of Venezuela where that nation's economic crisis has seen inflation soaring close to a million percent, with food and medicine hard to come by and malnutrition spreading. Water and power grids experiencing a lack of trained staff and spare parts, and failing to operate as needed public utilities.

Venezuelan police and its military abandoning posts in response to worthless paycheques. The socialist revolutionary government of President Nicolas Maduro, inheriting the throne from Hugo Chavez, corrupt beyond measure, using extraordinary repression to keep the masses in check. People are dying from lack of food and medical attention. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have migrated in a desperate search for haven in neighbouring countries, hoping for rescue from their desperate existential plight.

In this photo, villagers carry the remains of nine slain men from a fishing family to the cemetery in Cariaco, Sucre state, Venezuela. Rodrigo Abd / AP

Desperate times makes for desperate alternatives and harden the human conscience. Venezuelan vessels themselves are being raided; knives and guns brandished to emphasize the determination of the raiders to complete their mission, tying up crew, stealing food and electronics. According to the Commercial Crime Services division of the International Chamber of Commerce based in London, such incidents have become commonplace, emanating from Venezuelan desperation. The situation deteriorating rapidly has seen crime proliferate with drug smugglers shipping Colombian cocaine from Venezuelan ports to Trinidad and other Caribbean countries.

Trinidadian fishermen fear for their safety, in witness of Venezuelan boats smuggling military-issue guns along with drugs, exotic animals and women. The flow of automatic weapons out of Venezuela, some appearing to be looted from military stores, is contributing to homicide rates proliferating in Trinidad. When the hijacking of the boat that Jimmy Lalla was on was reported to Trinidadian officials they responded that "We have no boat to go after them; we can do nothing."