Radar a Christmas gift to Tobago, says TPP candidate

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les 

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected] 

For­mer To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) sec­re­tary and To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty mem­ber Cer­ti­ca Williams has re­ferred to the US mil­i­tary radar in­stal­la­tion at Crown Point as a “Christ­mas gift.”

Speak­ing dur­ing the par­ty’s meet­ing in Bon Ac­cord on Tues­day night, Williams told sup­port­ers that Crown Point had al­ready re­ceived its gift for the sea­son, point­ing to the radar now vis­i­ble on the air­port com­pound.

She said, “Crown Point, you have to show off your­self, you know. You have been so much in the news. The last week, you get your gift al­ready for Christ­mas. You have a whole radar in the air. You alone have your Christ­mas gift. You ain’t  wait­ing on San­ta again. The on­ly thing some of us go­ing to get in the air for Christ­mas is a kite.”

Her com­ment came even as res­i­dents con­tin­ue to ask when the equip­ment was in­stalled, what it is be­ing used for, and why there was no ad­vance no­tice to the com­mu­ni­ty.

The meet­ing was record­ed and Williams’ com­ment be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on­line short­ly af­ter the meet­ing.

Ad­dress­ing the com­ment on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris said To­bag­o­ni­ans are not treat­ing the mat­ter light­ly.

He said, “The in­stal­la­tion of the mil­i­tary war-type radar that has been in­stalled with­out the con­sul­ta­tion, with­out the con­sid­er­a­tion of the peo­ple of To­ba­go, is one, un­law­ful, it is dis­re­spect­ful, and as my po­lit­i­cal leader would say in To­ba­go par­lance, we now want them here.”

Mor­ris said tourism stake­hold­ers have re­port­ed can­cel­la­tions linked to con­cerns about the radar.

“This radar is­sue will be fore­most on the plat­form… the vote, come Jan­u­ary 12, ought to be a ref­er­en­dum on whether we want that radar here or not,” Mor­ris said in re­la­tion to the THA elec­tion on Jan­u­ary 12.

Mor­ris said Williams’ “Christ­mas gift” ref­er­ence does not re­flect the con­cerns many To­bag­o­ni­ans have raised in re­cent days. He said the radar should not have been in­stalled “with­out the con­sul­ta­tion” of the THA and the peo­ple who live clos­est to the air­port.

At the same TPP meet­ing, Chief Sec­re­tary and TPP leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine told sup­port­ers the is­land is fac­ing an un­cer­tain pe­ri­od. He said To­ba­go needs steady lead­er­ship go­ing in­to the THA elec­tion.

Au­gus­tine said, “When there is in­sta­bil­i­ty all around, there is a need for sta­ble lead­er­ship, there is a need for peo­ple to re­main steady and fo­cused.”

He al­so re­ferred to re­cent in­ci­dents where sus­pects es­caped by sea. He said, “as an is­land we con­tin­ue to fight against high lev­els of crime.”