Conflicting claims

JENSEN LA VENDE

THERE are conflicting reports surrounding three of 82 Venezuelans deported on Saturday, after Government said the three had asylum certificates but chose to be repatriated along with their countrymen.

Speaking in the Senate yesterday, National Security Minister Edmund Dillon said of those who were deported, three had the certificates and they all volunteered to be sent back home on two separate occasions.

In a telephone interview with Newsday yesterday, Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi confirmed that he, Dillon, Permanent Secretary in the National Security Ministry Vel Lewis; Chief Immigration Officer Charmaine Gandhi-Andrews; United Nations Resident Coordinator for TT Richard Blewitt and United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) representative Ruben Barbado, met and discussed the issue.

Al Rawi said they received information from UNHCR that the three were the only ones that had asylum certificates. A source within the UNHCR said that they could not verify how many of the Venezuelans had certificates of asylum as this Government is yet to supply them with a list of names of those who were deported on the weekend. The source said that following the meeting, Government assured that the list of names of those deported will be produced so the UNHCR will be able to verify who, if any, of those deported would have sought asylum and would have approached the UNHCR. On Saturday, the UNHCR said that of the 82, 13 were asylum-seekers and 19 others were in the process of becoming asylum-seekers.

The source added that the three people spoken about by Dillon, were verified solely by the National Security Ministry and not by the UNHCR. Following the deportation, the Geneva-based UNHCR said it “deeply regrets” the repatriation by the TT Government. Volker Türk, UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, said that “forced return of this group” was of “great concern” and TT was in breach of international law.

Amnesty International’s Americas director Erika Guevara Rosas wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley criticising the way in which the 82 Venezuelans were repatriated. In the letter, Guevara-Rosas said millions of Venezuelans are fleeing an unprecedented human rights crisis and are in need of a life jacket, “not to be sent back to a country where they may face torture or other grave human rights violations”.

Al-Rawi said given the new information, there may be a need to address Türk’s statement, as he said this country is clearly not in breach of the law and that notion is the “furthest thing from the truth”.

He added that while there is a signed treaty in place, that is not law and the only Commonwealth state that made the treaty law was the UK. He added that the guiding rule has been that asylum seeker not break the law in the land they are seeking asylum and these 82 Venezuelans would have broken the laws of TT.