Prime Minister fires back at radar questions with questions of her own

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­spond­ed to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les about the in­stal­la­tion of a new radar sys­tem in To­ba­go, ac­cus­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of at­tempt­ing to com­pro­mise na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

In a state­ment to­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said vi­o­lent crime over the past decade was dri­ven by the lo­cal drug mafia and “sanc­tion-bust­ing Venezue­lan crim­i­nal col­lab­o­ra­tors”. She said the new radar sys­tem as­sists with the de­tec­tion of il­le­gal Venezue­lan crude oil trans­fers and traf­fick­ers bring­ing nar­cotics, firearms, am­mu­ni­tion and mi­grants in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go, adding that the equip­ment pro­vides a su­pe­ri­or lay­er of pro­tec­tion that was pre­vi­ous­ly un­avail­able.

In her re­sponse, the Prime Min­is­ter called on the Op­po­si­tion to pub­licly dis­close key in­for­ma­tion, first ask­ing it to, “Dis­close to the cit­i­zens how long the PNM has known that the pre­vi­ous radar sys­tem has been com­pro­mised.”

She fur­ther chal­lenged the par­ty to, “Make pub­lic the names of the lo­cal busi­ness peo­ple af­fil­i­at­ed with the PNM and lo­cal drug mafia who have had il­le­gal ac­cess to clas­si­fied radar sur­veil­lance in­for­ma­tion.”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so ques­tioned why the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion’s radar failed to in­ter­cept il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty, ask­ing the PNM to, “Ex­plain why the ex­ist­ing radar sys­tem op­er­at­ed un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment for years, did not de­tect oil tankers en­gaged in the ship-to-ship trans­fer of sanc­tioned Venezue­lan oil with­in Trinida­di­an wa­ters, which led to the ob­tain­ing of doc­u­men­ta­tion stat­ing that Trinidad was the port of ori­gin for this oil and not Venezuela.”

She fur­ther pressed the Op­po­si­tion on its crit­i­cism of the for­mer Amer­i­can-sup­plied radar, call­ing on it to, “Ex­plain to the coun­try whether the PNM’s an­ti-Amer­i­can nar­ra­tive to re­move the Amer­i­can-sup­plied radar sys­tem is re­al­ly due to pres­sure or black­mail from the lo­cal drug mafia and the pre­vi­ous PNM gov­ern­ment’s crude oil sanc­tion-bust­ing Venezue­lan col­lab­o­ra­tors.”

These ques­tions form part of the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­sponse to Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, who ear­li­er to­day de­mand­ed an­swers on the cost of the radar, who in­stalled it, who op­er­ates it, and how its da­ta is stored and man­aged.

“I close by say­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter if you have the in­for­ma­tion take it to the po­lice,” Beck­les said.

Ear­li­er to­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les raised a se­ries of ques­tions at a press con­fer­ence on the cost, in­stal­la­tion, op­er­a­tion and da­ta man­age­ment of the radar sys­tem.

“The pop­u­la­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go is en­ti­tled to know what did that radar cost? Who in­stalled that radar? Whether any Trinida­di­an or To­bag­on­ian has been trained to op­er­ate that radar? The peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go are en­ti­tled to know what is hap­pen­ing to the da­ta that is col­lect­ed by that radar,” Beck­les said.

She added that the PNM un­der­stands the im­por­tance of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and bor­der pro­tec­tion and called on the Prime Min­is­ter to dis­close de­tails sur­round­ing the radar project and re­cent dis­cus­sions with the Unit­ed States.

“I there­fore am call­ing on the Hon­or­able Prime Min­is­ter to come clean with the pop­u­la­tion and to tell us if there are any oth­er se­crets that you are hid­ing with us in re­la­tion to the radar and in re­la­tion to To­ba­go and in re­la­tion to the dis­cus­sions that you re­cent­ly had with the U.S. Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine,” Beck­les said.

She al­so ques­tioned the tim­ing of re­cent de­vel­op­ments, ref­er­enc­ing a U.S. mil­i­tary air­craft land­ing in To­ba­go short­ly af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter de­nied that Venezuela was raised dur­ing dis­cus­sions with Gen­er­al Caine.

Asked what ac­tion the Op­po­si­tion would take if its ques­tions were ig­nored, Beck­les said it was the PNM’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to raise mat­ters in the pub­lic in­ter­est. She al­so re­ject­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s claims of links be­tween the PNM and drug traf­fick­ing.

“We will not ac­cept this Hon­or­able Prime Min­is­ter caus­ing dis­trac­tions and cre­at­ing mis­chief by ac­cus­ing us of sup­port­ing any nar­co gov­ern­ment and say­ing that we are in­volved in drug traf­fick­ing,” she said.

She end­ed by chal­leng­ing the Prime Min­is­ter to sub­mit any ev­i­dence to law en­force­ment.

“I close by say­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter if you have the in­for­ma­tion take it to the po­lice.”