MORE QUESTIONS AND NO ANSWERS

The story of the half-sunken barge off Tobago continues to raise questions that ought to be answered. For example, there are reports that the barge was transporting Venezuelan oil. Is this true? If so, was this an attempt by Venezuela to evade American sanctions? Also, was T&T complicit in any way in this alleged attempt to evade sanctions? If so, who in T&T was colluding with the Venezuelans to do this? And, if this is true, then does T&T face getting on America's blacklist in helping Venezuela?

Again, I could go on, but hopefully you get the point. The matter has become even more curious by the visit of the Minister of Energy yesterday to Caracas. What was he doing there? Don't we deserve some kind of explanation? Because an inference to be drawn if there is no explanation is that he went to collude with the Venezuelan authorities  in order to make sure that everybody's stories lined up. Now, if that is true, then it would mean that this matter is much more serious than we imagined and that we here in T&T are probably exposing ourselves to American retaliation.

Countries don't have friends: they have interests. So it is possible that if America decides that somebody in authority colluded with Venezuela to break their sanctions then unless we deal with that person or persons ourselves America may decide to punish us for helping Venezuela to breach their sanctions. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' and America could decide that T&T's helping the Venezuelan regime is evidence that we are on their (Venezuelan) side. So? Is it worth our while to help Venezuela if they were indeed trying to evade American sanctions?

And don't forget that the crew hasn't turned up yet! Why not? Who was the ultimate owner of this oil? Where was it going and who was buying it? And I am asking for the names of the actual persons who stood to benefit from this transaction. Why is this a secret?

Bottom line: is anybody in T&T involved in this matter? If so, who? And what was/is their role? What happened to cause the barge to break loose from whatever was towing it? Was it some sort of violence? An accident like a tow rope breaking? What? And if it was an accident when was it reported and to whom?

I could go on all day, and frankly the media should. But the evidence suggests that this "accident" (for want of a better word) is being covered up? If this is true then, why? We really do deserve a complete explanation. These suspicions are not healthy and there may be reasonable explanations for everything, But we deserve the truth. After all, if sanctions are to flow from this they won't come immediately - they'll come later, probably after the coming general election - but when they do, we will all hurt, and badly.