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  • 7 months ago
Strategic Security Expert, Commander Garvin Heerah is urging authorities against taking recent reports of Colombian paramilitary terrorists attempting to enter Venezuela from Trinidad and Tobago lightly.

He describes the claims as very serious allegations that warrant urgent attention and should not be dismissed.

More from Nicole M Romany.
Transcript
00:00Commander Hira, who previously served as head of the National Operations Center, says statements
00:07issued by the Ministry of Defense or Homeland Security are not enough in response to such
00:13a serious allegation.
00:14He notes that the claim originated from no less than the President of Venezuela and warns
00:21that the geopolitics between North America and the region must not be overlooked.
00:26According to Hira, border control continues to be one of the most pressing national security
00:32challenges in Trinidad and Tobago.
00:34He says we need to monitor the ongoing mass migration from Latin America, pointing out
00:41it is not only members of the skilled labor force entering the country, but also individuals
00:47connected to criminal gangs and organized crime.
00:51He maintains that the Ministry should be taking a proactive approach and thoroughly investigate
00:56the claims made by the Venezuelan leader.
00:59We, Trinidad and Tobago, should not be sitting and waiting to hear more.
01:03We should be very proactive and lifting all stones to ensure the sanitization and more
01:09or less the innocence of what is being said with regard to Trinidad.
01:14So that safeguarding the safety and security of our country that was stated in the last
01:18paragraph, I think, of the statement has to be amplified by the Ministry, so there should
01:26be some sort of specialist team that has been tasked to look at this.
01:31According to the Strategic Security Expert, no one knows whether this was an internal attack
01:37designed to disrupt Venezuela or not.
01:40But this country must keep a very close eye on the movements and identities of Colombian
01:47paramilitaries.
01:48And I say this as I urge law enforcement.
01:52And when I say identity, not their cards, not their registration, many of them have tattoos.
01:58Many of them have markings.
02:00The LATAM criminality goes a lot with the identity of tattoos and identifications aligned
02:09to certain gangs and aligned to paramilitary groups, especially you can tell who could
02:14be Colombian, DOMREP or even Venezuelan.
02:18Commander Hira is also calling on the government to adopt a more robust and informed approach
02:25to security, recommending the reintroduction of the situational awareness strategy that was
02:31effectively implemented by the National Operations Center during his tenure.
02:36He says this model allowed for real-time intelligence gathering, coordinated responses and a proactive
02:43threat assessment, tools he believes are urgently needed.
02:47Hira maintains that only with a coordinated, intelligence-led approach can this country effectively
02:54safeguard its borders.
02:56It has to be looked at from a policy and a strategy and not so many former government and
03:02the incoming government and whether we have prioritized the entirety of what I am speaking.
03:08Border control management speaks to the involvement of our air border, our maritime border, immigration,
03:15customs, land forces and most importantly the intelligence architecture that can support
03:21the policing of our ports.
03:26Nicole M Romany, TV6 News.
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