Off limits to Tobagonians

STEPHON NICHOLAS

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Grafton Beach Re­sort in To­ba­go is cur­rent­ly un­der tight se­cu­ri­ty with re­strict­ed ac­cess to the prop­er­ty, with re­ports of US troops be­ing ac­com­mo­dat­ed at the ho­tel.

Guardian Me­dia was barred from en­ter­ing the Black Rock com­pound yes­ter­day af­ter se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel said the ho­tel was booked for a par­tic­u­lar group and on­ly those guests were ad­mis­si­ble. Four se­cu­ri­ty guards at­tempt­ed to stop Guardian Me­dia from film­ing from the road­side, say­ing they were in­struct­ed not to al­low any­one to take pic­tures of the prop­er­ty.

Of­fi­cials at the ho­tel said no rooms were avail­able un­til the end of March, and ef­forts to even use the bar fa­cil­i­ty at the Grafton Beach Re­sort were pre­vent­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports from res­i­dents who live and work near­by, Unit­ed States troops have been spot­ted at the re­sort since their ar­rival in No­vem­ber last year to in­stall a mil­i­tary-grade G/ATOR radar sys­tem at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Crown Point. The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment had claimed the radar placed a tar­get on To­bag­o­ni­ans’ backs amid then-es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela last year. How­ev­er, the re­moval of for­mer Venezue­lan pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro by US troops on Jan­u­ary 3 has seen the diplo­mat­ic chan­nels be­tween the two coun­tries rekin­dled.

Last month, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­vealed it costs US$3 mil­lion per day to run the radar. The main­te­nance fee is be­ing han­dled ex­clu­sive­ly by the US. She said US troops re­main on the is­land to “en­sure that the radar would be safe and would be able to con­tin­ue work­ing, and will not be sab­o­taged, or any such mat­ters.”

The Prime Min­is­ter had ini­tial­ly de­nied the pres­ence of US troops on the is­land, say­ing it was a mat­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Re­cent vis­i­tors to the ho­tel have re­port­ed see­ing the troops on the Grafton prop­er­ty, in­clud­ing us­ing the gym fa­cil­i­ties.

How­ev­er, it re­mains un­clear how many US troops are on the is­land.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Grafton Beach Re­sort own­er Neisha Gal­barans­ingh for a com­ment yes­ter­day, but she de­clined to speak on record.

Ef­forts to con­tact Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine were al­so un­suc­cess­ful.

But fish­er­men at the near­by Cour­land de­pot said they have al­so spot­ted the US troops ex­er­cis­ing at the beach. They said their pres­ence is wel­comed and serves to give them peace of mind while at sea. They said fears of en­coun­ters with pi­rates from South Amer­i­ca are non-ex­is­tent as the US troops’ pres­ence acts as a de­ter­rence for ne­far­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ty at sea.

On Sat­ur­day, fish­er­man Elvis Bobb had his boat stolen at Cour­land Bay. How­ev­er, 24 hours lat­er, it was found at the Bon Ac­cord la­goon. All To­ba­go Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Cur­tis Dou­glas said the theft was an “in-house” job and could not be blamed on for­eign­ers.

Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to strength­en its re­la­tion­ship with the US and was one of two Cari­com coun­tries in­vit­ed to the in­au­gur­al Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit in Flori­da on Sat­ur­day. Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­peat­ed­ly said T&T does not have the ca­pac­i­ty to fight drug traf­fick­ers and would re­ly on the ex­per­tise and mil­i­tary might of the US. On Sat­ur­day, she signed T&T on­to an al­liance called the Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion.

On Mon­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar met with lead­er­ship from the Unit­ed States South­ern Com­mand. The Prime Min­is­ter said na­tion­al and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty were high on the agen­da and ex­tend­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to South­com Com­man­der Fran­cis L Dono­van to vis­it Trinidad and To­ba­go lat­er this year.