Abdulah to US Ambassador: Hush your mouth, please!

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“Mr Mondello, hush your mouth please!”

This was how Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) political leader David Abdulah responded to the United States (US) Ambassador, Joseph Mondello who criticised T&T and CARICOM for their handling of the Venezuelan crisis.

Responding to media questions on Venezuelans fleeing to Trinidad, Mondella said it was perplexing that some Caricom member states claim neutrality concerning Venezuela’s crisis, but have no problem criticising the legitimate opposition in Venezuela or questioned the motives to those who support the self-appointed president Juan Guaido. He said, these members never criticised Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his government for human rights abuses and violations which are documented by the United Nations.

Regarding T&T, he said the government allowed Venezuelan vice president Delcy Rodriguez to enter the country with PDVSA executives for COVID-19 discussions, violating the Rio Treaty.

In a media conference at the MSJ’s headquarters in San Fernando, Abdulah said the US has its own human right abuses as its migrant treatment is horrendous.

“Mr Mondello has absolutely no moral authority, zero, to open his mouth on this question because it is well known that the administration which he represents, the Trump administration, was separating children from their parents, who came in together at the US/Mexico border. They arrived together. They may have not only arrived, but they may also have crossed the border illegally and gone to other parts of the United States, and then they were separated from their parents. Their parents were deported and children were being kept in cages. We all saw that publicly, kept in cages and up to now, there are children whose parents cannot be located. Mr Mondello, hush your mouth please,” said Abdulah.

A November 25 article in the New York Times stated that Mexican migrant families and unaccompanied children who crossed the US/Mexico border by the hundreds of thousands in 2018 and 2019 were often jammed into chain-link pens at a massive Customs and Border Protection facility in South Texas.Regarding Mondello’s comments that the last Venezuelan election was undemocratic, Abdulah said he should tell his friend, President Donald Trump, that he should concede the US election to president-elect Joe Biden and stop his efforts to circumvent his removal.

“Mondello, tell your partner Trump about elections and leave Venezuela out of it. You have no moral authority to tell anybody election anywhere. You have lost that moral authority.”