Why US troops still here?

STEPHON NICHOLAS

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Four months af­ter their ar­rival in To­ba­go to in­stall a mil­i­tary-grade radar sys­tem at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Crown Point, the US mil­i­tary main­tains a con­sis­tent pres­ence on the is­land.

And the op­po­si­tion par­ties want to know why, since the US no longer has a press­ing rea­son to stay giv­en that it has man­aged to achieve its main goal for be­ing in the re­gion - de­pos­ing Venezue­lan Nico­las Maduro.

Their com­ments have come amid a Guardian Me­dia re­port that ac­cess to the Grafton Beach Re­sort in Black Rock has been re­strict­ed due to the pres­ence of US mil­i­tary there, with se­cu­ri­ty say­ing the fa­cil­i­ty has been booked for a spe­cif­ic group and on­ly guests are al­lowed on the com­pound. There have been mul­ti­ple re­ports of US troops ex­er­cis­ing at the gym fa­cil­i­ties there and jog­ging along the near­by Cour­land beach.

In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance leader Dr Denise Tsoiafatt An­gus yes­ter­day de­mand­ed to know how long the US troops will be sta­tioned in To­ba­go.

She said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had as­sured the na­tion that the arrange­ment was tem­po­rary and tied to nar­cotics in­ter­dic­tion.

The for­mer THA pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer said, “In­stead of a clear with­draw­al, the pub­lic is hear­ing of sig­na­tures to ad­di­tion­al agree­ments and ex­pand­ed op­er­a­tional ac­tiv­i­ties. So, the re­al ques­tion for the Gov­ern­ment to an­swer is, are they leav­ing or are they stay­ing?

“If this arrange­ment is con­tin­u­ing with the USA and the as­sets on the ground, the Gov­ern­ment must tell the na­tion how long it will last, what the op­er­a­tional scope now is, and whether this has evolved in­to a more per­ma­nent strate­gic de­ploy­ment in­to our re­gion.”

Ac­cord­ing to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the US$3 mil­lion-per-day radar was in­stalled in To­ba­go to tack­le nar­co-traf­fick­ing and gun smug­gling, es­pe­cial­ly out of Venezuela. The US has la­belled Maduro the head of a drug car­tel and blamed him for il­le­gal drugs flood­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Caribbean and the US.

But with Maduro’s un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous re­moval in a US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion on Jan­u­ary 3, and the sub­se­quent im­prove­ment in the diplo­mat­ic chan­nels be­tween US and Venezuela, ques­tions con­tin­ue to be asked about why the US mil­i­tary is still in To­ba­go.

Tsoiafatt An­gus said the elim­i­na­tion of Maduro from Venezuela’s po­lit­i­cal land­scape should have re­sult­ed in the Amer­i­can mil­i­tary’s ex­it as well.

“If the chief cook and bot­tle wash­er in that op­er­a­tion has al­ready been cap­tured and re­moved, then the ob­vi­ous ques­tion is, what ex­act­ly is the con­tin­u­ing mis­sion here?”

She called for an open dis­cus­sion and par­lia­men­tary scruti­ny on the coun­try’s role in be­com­ing a plat­form for ma­jor geopo­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests.

“In this in­creas­ing­ly tense glob­al en­vi­ron­ment, small states must be es­pe­cial­ly care­ful. Co­op­er­a­tion with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners is nec­es­sary in the fight against crime, but that co­op­er­a­tion must nev­er come at the ex­pense of trans­paren­cy, sov­er­eign­ty, or long-term in­ter­ests of our na­tion.”

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis has been a vo­cif­er­ous crit­ic of the radar, and main­tained this stance when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day. He said cur­rent events in the Mid­dle East are a tes­ta­ment to the con­se­quences of hous­ing US as­sets on the is­land.

The Gulf re­gion has been a war­zone since the US-Is­rael al­liance at­tacked Iran on Feb­ru­ary 28 in what it has de­scribed as a “pre-emp­tive” strike. Iran has re­spond­ed with mis­sile strikes on US bases and in­fra­struc­ture housed by its neigh­bour­ing coun­tries such as Bahrain, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates and Qatar.

Den­nis said, “We liv­ing in a world, every­body see what is hap­pen­ing. We have seen sev­er­al ex­am­ples in re­cent times where ... proof to mil­i­tary as­sets are be­com­ing tar­gets for what we might con­sid­er en­e­mies of the peo­ple we are host­ing at this time. It is not any­thing to take light­ly.

“We were against this de­vel­op­ment from day one. It is some­thing we have been warn­ing the peo­ple about. We have ex­am­ples of the po­ten­tial ram­i­fi­ca­tions of these arrange­ments.”

Den­nis said the lack of trans­paren­cy re­mains a cause of con­cern, es­pe­cial­ly with T&T pen­ning more agree­ments with the US.

On Sat­ur­day, at the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit in Flori­da, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar signed T&T on­to the Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion, which in­cludes the US and 11 oth­er na­tions from Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, South Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

Den­nis said, “It’s a lot of con­flict­ing in­fo, but the peo­ple of To­ba­go and T&T should de­mand trans­paren­cy where this is­sue is con­cerned.

“What is in it for T&T? What are we giv­ing up? What deals are on the ta­ble? What are the ben­e­fits for us?”

Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day spoke to fish­er­men at the near­by Cour­land De­pot and while most had no is­sue with the US pres­ence, one man, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said they did lit­tle to im­prove se­cu­ri­ty on the is­land.

“Look, just days ago they gone with a boat park up right there,” he said, point­ing to the shore. So, it eh no re­al dif­fer­ence. We boats eh safe.”

An­oth­er fish­er­man queried how the radar could not help find a fish­ing ves­sel which left To­ba­go around 1.30 pm on March 2 en route to St Vin­cent. The boat was ex­pect­ed to reach St Vin­cent the same day but nei­ther ves­sel nor crew has been seen since.

“They hug­ging the coast­line go­ing up and the radar can’t find them.”

An­oth­er fish­er­man said the US has been in T&T for decades and built bases in Trinidad dur­ing World War II. He said their pres­ence should not alarm any­one, as they have been an al­ly to T&T for a long time.

Mean­while, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said yes­ter­day that US troops will be leav­ing To­ba­go in a mat­ter of days.

Speak­ing on i95.5FM, Au­gus­tine con­firmed a Guardian Me­dia re­port about the US mil­i­tary pres­ence at the Grafton Beach Re­sort. How­ev­er, he said any in­struc­tion to re­strict lo­cal ac­cess to the prop­er­ty did not come from Gov­ern­ment or the THA.

“There has been no na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty di­rec­tive or di­rec­tive from the THA for there to be re­stric­tion on pub­lic use at the ho­tel.

“Cer­tain­ly, I don’t see the need for any re­stric­tion when their ex­pect­ed de­par­ture is in a cou­ple days from now,” he said.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Regi­nald MacLean said he had no is­sue with the US mil­i­tary on the is­land.

He said their pres­ence has had no neg­a­tive ef­fect on tourism.

“None what­so­ev­er, it makes it safer,” he said.

“All the is­sue to do with Venezuela has qui­et­ed down. We should be good with Venezuela. I think To­ba­go is fine with that.”

Asked about the US pres­ence at Grafton, he added, “I am hap­py for them to stay at a lo­cal ho­tel. That way the ho­tel gets good oc­cu­pan­cy and it helps with pay­ing the bills in To­ba­go.”

Guardian Me­dia tried to can­vass peo­ple on the is­land about whether they were com­fort­able about the de­ci­sion to re­strict ac­cess to Grafton Beach Re­sort amidst the US mil­i­tary pres­ence. The To­bag­o­ni­ans ap­proached did not want to ad­dress the mat­ter pub­licly. Three peo­ple from Trinidad did ad­dress the is­sue.

Ju­nior Hinds, who is from Port-of-Spain, said, “It’s very un­com­fort­able on be­half of the peo­ple of To­ba­go and I find the prime min­is­ter should put her foot for­ward more and make the cit­i­zens feel com­fort­able in every pos­si­ble way. I don’t ap­pre­ci­ate it.”

Rachel Smith, from St Joseph, said, “I won’t say that it’s right. I do have ques­tions about why they’re here, how long they plan to stay, what is their agen­da?”

Ger­ard Bourne, of Cas­cade, said, “I agree with it be­cause it’s for the pro­tec­tion and the safe­ty of the peo­ple at the same time.”