Tobago Backlash: Farley still in the dark on US military activity,

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Even as some sec­tors of To­ba­go con­tin­ued to ex­press con­cern with the lat­est de­ci­sion by Gov­ern­ment to al­low the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary ac­cess to this coun­try’s air­ports, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says he was not made aware of the de­ci­sion to grant such per­mis­sion pri­or to Mon­day’s me­dia re­lease from the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs.

“I saw it from a press re­lease to­day (Mon­day), so while I was can­vass­ing, I saw the press re­lease out to the pub­lic, so I take it that the Gov­ern­ment sought to in­form every­body, in­clud­ing my­self, at the same time, but we had no pri­or dis­cus­sion about it,” Au­gus­tine told the me­dia on Mon­day, not­ing he had not been con­sult­ed be­fore the move was tak­en.

Au­gus­tine added that if the com­mu­ni­ca­tion was dis­patched by the Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor and through the of­fice of the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, it could have ar­rived at the of­fice be­fore be­ing made pub­lic.

“Yes, in a sense we were no­ti­fied be­fore, but I am hap­py that the en­tire pub­lic has been no­ti­fied.”

Au­gus­tine al­so de­clared that he is “not see­ing To­ba­go as a tar­get” de­spite the de­vel­op­ment, even as two US mil­i­tary jets land­ed at the air­ports in Crown Point and Pi­ar­co yes­ter­day. (See page 6)

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on the is­sue yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained that the ar­rival of US mil­i­tary air­craft to Trinidad and To­ba­go was part of con­tin­ued rou­tine ex­er­cis­es be­tween the ter­ri­to­ries, not­ing that if any­thing out of the or­di­nary is to oc­cur, Chief Sec­re­tary Au­gus­tine will be in­formed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­tend­ed that “For­eign Af­fairs is the min­istry tasked with deal­ing with those com­mu­ni­ca­tions.”

Mean­while, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris has warned that the Gov­ern­ment’s re­cent ap­proval for the use of the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Crown Point by the US mil­i­tary, for what has been de­scribed as “lo­gis­ti­cal ac­tiv­i­ties,” could deal a crip­pling blow to To­ba­go’s al­ready frag­ile tourism sec­tor.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Mor­ris said the de­ci­sion has sparked fear among res­i­dents and stake­hold­ers, with tan­gi­ble eco­nom­ic fall­out al­ready be­ing felt across the is­land.

“This is a mat­ter of great con­cern for us here in To­ba­go, be­cause it’s not just lives at risk, it’s liveli­hoods,” Mor­ris said.

“I have been re­li­ably ad­vised that a num­ber of cruise ship calls have al­ready been can­celled over this very is­sue, and now that we are hear­ing of even more mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty, you could imag­ine the dam­age that will do to our very volatile tourism sec­tor.”

Ac­cord­ing to Mor­ris, hote­liers have al­so re­port­ed an in­crease in can­cel­la­tions, as vis­i­tors grow wary of va­ca­tion­ing in a des­ti­na­tion per­ceived to be linked to po­ten­tial mil­i­tary con­flict.

“Who would want to take a va­ca­tion in a place where there is fear that mil­i­tary con­flict may arise?” he asked. “This re­al­ly is the fi­nal nail in To­ba­go’s tourism cof­fin.”

Mor­ris al­so crit­i­cised Au­gus­tine’s re­sponse, de­scrib­ing his ap­par­ent ac­cep­tance of the sit­u­a­tion as “trou­bling.” He not­ed that the Chief Sec­re­tary had pre­vi­ous­ly as­sured To­bag­o­ni­ans they have “ab­solute­ly noth­ing to wor­ry about,” a po­si­tion Mor­ris said is now dis­con­nect­ed from pub­lic sen­ti­ment on the is­land.

“It’s quite strange, and some­thing To­bag­o­ni­ans should note, that the Chief Sec­re­tary is cu­ri­ous­ly qui­et on these mat­ters and very ac­cept­ing,” Mor­ris said.

“It ap­pears he has sold his voice to the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go and is no longer putting To­bag­o­ni­ans first, but rather his own po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests.”

He added that many To­bag­o­ni­ans, par­tic­u­lar­ly old­er res­i­dents who have lived through past dis­as­ters, are deeply con­cerned about the wider im­pli­ca­tions of host­ing for­eign mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions.

“They are ask­ing if some­thing es­ca­lates be­tween the US and Venezuela, and we are in the mid­dle, what does that mean for us?” Mor­ris said.

“Peo­ple are lit­er­al­ly liv­ing in fear. While we are pray­ing it does not es­ca­late, the re­al­i­ty is that by fa­cil­i­tat­ing these mil­i­tary planes, the rules of en­gage­ment mean we now be­come fair game, and that has peo­ple ex­treme­ly fear­ful.”

Mor­ris al­so ques­tioned the Chief Sec­re­tary’s claim that he on­ly be­came aware of the arrange­ment through a me­dia re­lease, sug­gest­ing ei­ther a trou­bling lack of re­spect for the THA or a fail­ure to be ful­ly trans­par­ent.

“I can­not fath­om how a Chief Sec­re­tary, who was so vo­cal about de­fend­ing To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my in the past, is now so un­der­stand­ing of not be­ing in­formed,” Mor­ris said, adding that the re­sponse would like­ly have been far dif­fer­ent un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He is­sued a di­rect ap­peal to Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, call­ing for a recom­mit­ment to re­gion­al peace.

“We want our coun­try to con­tin­ue to recog­nise the Caribbean as a zone of peace and not a zone of war,” Mor­ris said.

“His­to­ry has shown that wher­ev­er war oc­curs, it leaves peo­ple worse off than be­fore, and we are strong­ly re­ject­ing any fa­cil­i­ta­tion of an es­ca­la­tion of con­flict be­tween sov­er­eign na­tions.”

Echo­ing and ex­pand­ing on those fears, In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) leader Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus ar­gued yes­ter­day that To­ba­go is now in­creas­ing­ly be­ing po­si­tioned as a strate­gic tar­get should a war break out be­tween the US and Venezuela.

“This is the Gov­ern­ment’s way of telling, but not telling, the peo­ple that we are caught up in the mid­dle of a war be­tween the US and Venezuela,” Tsoiafatt-An­gus said.

“It start­ed with the radar, and now it is mil­i­tary op­er­a­tives com­ing in to change and re­fu­el. We con­tin­ue to be a tar­get, and we will be an in­creas­ing tar­get at every turn.”

Tsoiafatt-An­gus warned that in the event of open con­flict, To­ba­go’s in­fra­struc­ture could be viewed as a le­git­i­mate mil­i­tary ob­jec­tive.

“Should there be an ac­tu­al war, they will want to take out re­fu­elling sites and mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems like the radar,” she said.

She al­so crit­i­cised the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process, in­sist­ing that To­bag­o­ni­ans were nev­er giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to weigh in on an is­sue with po­ten­tial­ly se­ri­ous con­se­quences.

“To­ba­go did not want to be in­volved in this, and we weren’t even giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to say no,” Tsoiafatt-An­gus said.

Adding a civ­il so­ci­ety per­spec­tive, Pro­vide Equiv­a­lent Eq­ui­table Com­pen­sa­tion for Every­one (PEECE) leader Rhon­da Hack­ett yes­ter­day said To­ba­go res­i­dents are con­cerned about the po­ten­tial health, safe­ty, and se­cu­ri­ty im­pli­ca­tions of in­creased mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty.

“It is al­ways cu­ri­ous to know where the safe­ty of res­i­dents fits in­to mil­i­tary and na­tion­al op­er­a­tions,” Hack­ett said.

While not­ing that the news is still re­cent and that she has not yet gauged the views of the wider pop­u­la­tion on the is­land, she said con­cerns al­ready ex­ist around the pres­ence of the radar in­stal­la­tion and what the broad­er im­pli­ca­tions could be.

“Some­times some­thing is pre­sent­ed as serv­ing one pur­pose, but it can have wide and far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions that we are un­aware of,” she said.

Hack­ett ac­knowl­edged that cit­i­zens must lis­ten to and law­ful­ly fol­low guid­ance from na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties, but stressed the im­por­tance of di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion with af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly those liv­ing near the air­port in Crown Point.

“To­ba­go is ex­treme­ly small, 116 square miles,” she said. “Based on the type of am­mu­ni­tion that ex­ists glob­al­ly, it isn’t just one area that could be im­pact­ed. It could be a large pro­por­tion of To­ba­go.”

She called for en­gage­ment from na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials, sug­gest­ing a me­dia brief­ing or for­mal com­mu­ni­ca­tion to ad­dress fears and an­swer ques­tions about is­sues such as air­craft fly­ing over homes and whether mil­i­tary planes may be car­ry­ing ex­plo­sives or am­mu­ni­tion.

For­mer min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne has al­so raised fun­da­men­tal ques­tions about the suit­abil­i­ty and safe­ty of us­ing civil­ian air­ports for mil­i­tary pur­pos­es.

Browne said Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar should be re­mind­ed that the na­tion’s air­ports “are de­signed and staffed and se­cured for civil­ian use, not for use as air bases for mil­i­tary air­craft of var­i­ous types for an un­spec­i­fied du­ra­tion.”

He warned that such air­craft could be “car­ry­ing a wide range of mu­ni­tions and ex­plo­sives that will not be dis­closed to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go while tran­sit­ing na­tion­al air­space, fly­ing over res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties and land­ing on lo­cal soil.”

Among the con­cerns he out­lined were pre­pared­ness for ac­ci­dents or in­ci­dents, com­mu­ni­ca­tion with res­i­dents liv­ing near the air­ports, the safe­ty of civil­ian and car­go air­craft, and whether emer­gency and fire fa­cil­i­ties at Crown Point and Pi­ar­co have been ad­e­quate­ly up­grad­ed for po­ten­tial mil­i­tary con­tin­gen­cies.

Browne al­so crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as a lack of trans­paren­cy in the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of re­gion­al and na­tion­al for­eign pol­i­cy mat­ters.

“For the past six months, the Prime Min­is­ter has re­fused to prop­er­ly ad­dress the na­tion on her re­gion­al poli­cies and on­go­ing con­tri­bu­tions to a regime-change war.”

In­stead, he con­tend­ed, key de­ci­sions have been com­mu­ni­cat­ed through What­sApp mes­sages to se­lect jour­nal­ists and me­dia re­leas­es.