Green light for US troops

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

The Gov­ern­ment has ap­proved the use of lo­cal air­ports by Unit­ed States mil­i­tary air­craft to con­duct what it de­scribes as “lo­gis­ti­cal ac­tiv­i­ties,” a de­ci­sion that has sparked strong crit­i­cism from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), which claims it ce­ments the coun­try’s sta­tus as a “satel­lite state” of the US.

And while the Op­po­si­tion con­demns the move, ex­perts are di­vid­ed on whether the Gov­ern­ment’s an­nounce­ment is a cause for con­cern.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day morn­ing, the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs an­nounced, “In keep­ing with es­tab­lished bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion, the Min­istry has grant­ed ap­provals for Unit­ed States mil­i­tary air­craft to tran­sit Trinidad and To­ba­go’s air­ports in the com­ing weeks. The Unit­ed States has ad­vised that these move­ments are lo­gis­ti­cal in na­ture, fa­cil­i­tat­ing sup­ply re­plen­ish­ment and rou­tine per­son­nel ro­ta­tions.”

No fur­ther in­for­ma­tion about the air­craft was pro­vid­ed. The rest of the re­lease sought to un­der­score this coun­try’s part­ner­ship with the US as it per­tains to re­gion­al safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty.

“The Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs main­tains close en­gage­ment with the Unit­ed States Em­bassy in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, has af­firmed the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to co­op­er­a­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion in the pur­suit of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty for Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider re­gion. We wel­come the con­tin­ued sup­port of the Unit­ed States.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers via What­sApp with sev­er­al ques­tions, in­clud­ing how many air­craft the coun­try is ex­pect­ing, how long the per­mis­sion will be in ef­fect for and how many US mil­i­tary per­son­nel are cur­rent­ly in the coun­try. Sobers did not re­spond.

The same ques­tions were put to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who on­ly said this was a “rou­tine co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the US mil­i­tary and our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies.”

The Prime Min­is­ter did not re­spond to any of the oth­er ques­tions.

But Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne called the me­dia re­lease “de­cep­tive” and un­prece­dent­ed.

Dr Browne said, “Nev­er be­fore has our coun­try giv­en blan­ket per­mis­sion for un­spec­i­fied for­eign mil­i­tary air­craft to use the air­ports and air­space of Trinidad and To­ba­go in the build-up to a regime change war. There is noth­ing rou­tine about this.”

The for­mer min­is­ter claimed this has noth­ing to do with the usu­al co­op­er­a­tion and friend­ly col­lab­o­ra­tion this coun­try has en­joyed with the US over the years.

“It sim­ply takes Trinidad and To­ba­go a fur­ther step down the path of a satel­lite state which has dis­missed Cari­com and in­ter­na­tion­al law and em­braced a might-is-right phi­los­o­phy. For six months now, the Prime Min­is­ter has re­fused to ad­dress this na­tion and prop­er­ly ex­plain what she has done to our neu­tral for­eign pol­i­cy and our stand­ing in the re­gion and the world.”

In re­sponse to this claim, the Prime Min­is­ter said Dr Browne’s ha­tred of the Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment and its peo­ple is shame­ful.

Con­cern over the Gov­ern­ment’s an­nounce­ment was al­so ex­pressed by in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert and for­mer hon­orary se­nior fel­low of the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les.

Dr Gon­za­les not­ed that while the Prime Min­is­ter has con­stant­ly main­tained that this coun­try will not be used as a “launch­ing pad” to at­tack the Venezue­lan peo­ple, the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions will be per­ceived dif­fer­ent­ly by the Nico­las Maduro regime.

“They are look­ing at this and they are say­ing, well, you know, Amer­i­can planes are land­ing here, they are re­fu­elling here and all of that. They are look­ing at that as you are sup­port­ing the Amer­i­cans and you are as­sist­ing the Amer­i­cans to be able to at­tack them. That is how they are go­ing to con­sid­er that,” Gon­za­les said.

“If you say you don’t want here to be used as a launch­ing pad, you have to be pret­ty strict about that. You have to be very clear with the Amer­i­cans what they can come and do here and what they shouldn’t do.”

How­ev­er, for­mer di­rec­tor of the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), Pro­fes­sor An­tho­ny Bryan, has a dif­fer­ing view.

Pro­fes­sor Bryan said the an­nounce­ment by the For­eign Af­fairs min­istry was “per­fect­ly nor­mal.”

“This is noth­ing more than a check on mil­i­tary as­sets that are with­in the coun­try of Trinidad and To­ba­go that be­long to the Unit­ed States. I don’t think the Venezue­lans would be wor­ried about that. They know that Trinidad and To­ba­go is an al­ly of the Unit­ed States,” he said.

“This is per­fect­ly nor­mal. Noth­ing mys­te­ri­ous there, noth­ing hid­den. It’s all out in the open, and each side will make the ap­pro­pri­ate judge­ment.”

Mean­while, for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith told Guardian Me­dia that the heavy US mil­i­tary pres­ence in the re­gion will mean they have sup­ply needs and the coun­try can cap­i­talise on that.

“If you speak about 10,000 sailors, even­tu­al­ly they have to go on shore leave. If you talk about 1,000 of them at all times com­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go shore, you’re speak­ing about $500 US be­ing spent. When you keep mul­ti­ply­ing that for a year, you could get bil­lions—over a bil­lion odd TT dol­lars,” Grif­fith said.

“They al­so have the pos­si­bil­i­ty that if the Gov­ern­ment do this right, they can start as­sist­ing the Unit­ed States by stat­ing that we can sup­ply many of the food items that you re­quire in­stead of bring­ing it from North Amer­i­ca, take it from Trinidad and To­ba­go. This can as­sist our agri­cul­ture in­dus­try im­mense­ly.”

Over the week­end, the Gov­ern­ment of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic au­tho­rised sev­er­al US mil­i­tary air­craft to land in the coun­try in the com­ing days as part of an op­er­a­tional sup­port de­ploy­ment in the Caribbean.

The air­craft will have tem­po­rary per­mits to op­er­ate from re­strict­ed ar­eas at San Isidro Air Base and Las Améri­c­as In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.