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Vol. 31, Issue 43 BROOKLYN EDITION October 23-29, 2020
SECRET
FLIGHTS
DENIAL
T&T, US gov’t officials deny deporting
Venezuelan refugees via Trinidad
By Bert Wilkinson
Trinidad’s government this
week forcibly denied claims by
officials in Washington that they
had quietly allowed the US to
use the island as a transit point
to forcibly send back dozens of
Venezuelan refugees fleeing economic
and other hardships in
the South American nation on
secret flights in recent months.
The denials were forced out of
Security Minister Stuart Young
after the local Guardian Newspaper
ran an in depth piece on such
allegations that were made by
Democratic New Jersey Senator
Robert Menendez that Trinidad
had allowed the US to secretly
deport Venezuelans through the
country in what the legislator
called stealth and covert operations.
Minister Young said the
administration of Prime Minister
Keith Rowley is patently unaware
of any deportations to Venezuela
using Trinidad as a third country
to get around biting air travel
restrictions with Venezuela noting
that cabinet approval would
have to have been given for such
an important exercise to take
place on local soil.
The issue raised its head in
the past week after Menendez
wrote Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo and Transportation Secretary
Elaine Chao demanding
answers from Washington about
security officials using Panama
and Trinidad to get around travel
restrictions to Venezuela.
“New documents provided to
my office confirm that US deportations
to Venezuela continued
via third countries at least until
March 2020, while the Trump
administration has offered little
assurance that it will not continue
to forcibly return Venezuelans
to a regime the United Nations
recently stated has committed
crimes against humanity,” the
senator said in his letter.
Clearly fazed by the revelation,
Minister Young said that “as
far as I’m aware there is no truth
to the allegations that the US
deported Venezuelans through
T&T. It’s a strange proposition.
We never agreed to any such
operations. I’ve confirmed with
Assemblyman Nick Perry and Community Advocate and Nurse Mercedes Narcisse stand
together in their call for police reform at a rally at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn in June.
Perry, File Frank Shea/Offi ce of Assemblyman Nick
Caribbean pols urge voters to flood Nov. 3 poll
By Nelson A. King
Even as some of them are
running in uncontested races
in the Nov. 3 poll, Caribbean
American legislators in Brooklyn
are urging the community
to vote in what they describe
as, perhaps, the most important
Presidential Elections in their
life time.
“In our lifetimes, we have
heard before, ‘this is the most
important election ever’, but
never has this been truer than
this 2020 election,” said veteran
New York State Assemblyman
Nick Perry, the Democratic representative
for the 58th Assembly
District in Brooklyn, in a
Caribbean Life interview.
“I firmly believe that four
more years of (President Donald
J.) Trump in the White
House will see the destruction
of America’s democracy, as we
know it, and as the founding
fathers tried to create,” added
Jamaican-born Perry, who is
running unopposed in the Nov.
3 general elections. “After only
four years, one would have to be
totally blind to not see and hear
the awful noise of the breaks
and cracks of our Democratic
system of government that
no one imagined could have
occurred.
“The stakes are too high, and
it is truly a matter of life and
death for our democracy,” Perry
continued. “Lies and deceit are
not all we have to worry about;
we also will be voting for a public
purging of the corrupt elected
leaders and some reconstruction
of our processes to prevent
a few enablers from breaking up
Continued on Page 12 Continued on Page 12
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