US packs up radar

STEPHON NICHOLAS

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The con­tro­ver­sial ground/air task-ori­ent­ed US mil­i­tary-grade radar at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Crown Point is gone.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed a van­tage point at Kil­gwyn Bay Road yes­ter­day morn­ing, where the tow­er­ing radar could have pre­vi­ous­ly been seen ro­tat­ing.

How­ev­er, the mil­i­tary as­set sup­plied by the US was no­tice­ably miss­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to sources, the radar has been dis­man­tled and a US mil­i­tary car­go air­craft is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive on the is­land soon to take it away.

Its ab­sence comes five days af­ter Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine an­nounced that US troops on the is­land were days away from leav­ing.

US troops have been in To­ba­go since No­vem­ber last year, su­per­vis­ing the op­er­a­tion of the radar, which re­port­ed­ly cost US$3 mil­lion a day to run.

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed the pres­ence of US mil­i­tary per­son­nel at Grafton Beach Re­sort last Tues­day, but se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers re­strict­ed ac­cess to the Black Rock re­sort say­ing it was booked “for a spe­cif­ic group.”

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had ini­tial­ly de­nied the pres­ence of US troops on the is­land, but lat­er ac­knowl­edged they were here to im­prove sur­veil­lance us­ing a radar sys­tem. She said the radar would help tack­le the scourge of drug and hu­man traf­fick­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly out of Venezuela.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis, a vo­cif­er­ous crit­ic of the radar, yes­ter­day cel­e­brat­ed its ab­sence.

“Good rid­dance. We have been very vo­cal about this is­sue that this oc­cu­pa­tion of our is­land and our coun­try was not gonna au­gur well for us in terms of our re­la­tions with our im­me­di­ate neigh­bour and Cari­com by ex­ten­sion. This de­vel­op­ment should tell To­bag­o­ni­ans one thing—that we were lied to,” Den­nis said.

“We were told this radar was about crime fight­ing, it was here to aid in the fight against hu­man traf­fick­ing and drug traf­fick­ing. It is leav­ing now, con­ve­nient­ly af­ter the ob­jec­tives that the for­eign mil­i­tary that oc­cu­pied here had in Venezuela was ac­com­plished.”

Den­nis in­sist­ed the radar played a role in the US’s re­moval of for­mer Venezuela Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro in a mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion in Cara­cas on Jan­u­ary 3.

He said nei­ther Trinidad nor To­ba­go ben­e­fit­ed di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly from its pres­ence.

“We were lied to when they said the radar as­sist­ed in a drug bust in Ca­roni (swamp). That was ob­vi­ous­ly a big lie and the ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens saw through that lie. This radar was nev­er about na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.”

In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) leader Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus al­so wel­comed the radar’s re­moval but won­dered whether the war on drugs was over.

She said the IDA had raised con­cerns about its in­stal­la­tion as well as pos­si­ble detri­men­tal health ef­fects on near­by com­mu­ni­ties.

“But the re­moval of this radar does not close the mat­ter... The ob­vi­ous ques­tion is did T&T win the war on drugs? Did the en­tire Caribbean nar­cotics trade sud­den­ly dis­ap­pear overnight?” she said.

“It is clear, af­ter blow­ing up about 19 boats in the sea and re­mov­ing one man—even one as promi­nent as Nico­las Maduro—does not mag­i­cal­ly shut down a mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar glob­al drug in­dus­try.”

The IDA leader said the pub­lic was duped about the true pur­pose of the radar.

“This in­stal­la­tion ap­pears to have served far more ben­e­fit to the US strate­gic in­ter­est than the peo­ple of T&T.”

She claimed tourism, the fish­ing in­dus­try and gen­er­al econ­o­my suf­fered be­cause of crime, the radar and the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency.

“The US still ad­vis­es its cit­i­zens to re­con­sid­er trav­el to T&T be­cause of vi­o­lent crime and kid­nap­ping risks, so clear­ly the radar was nev­er the so­lu­tion to the crime prob­lem.”

Mean­while, Au­gus­tine yes­ter­day con­firmed Guardian Me­dia’s ex­clu­sive re­port yes­ter­day about the re­moval of the radar.

He told TV6 News, “Prepa­ra­tions are un­der­way for the equip­ment and as­so­ci­at­ed per­son­nel to leave the is­land.”

Au­gus­tine said the Of­fice of the Sec­re­tary was made aware of the radar’s de­par­ture.

“It’s quite in line with the sched­ule that I was giv­en. From day one, it was clear this was nev­er a per­ma­nent fix­ture but al­ways tem­po­rary,” he said.

How­ev­er, Au­gus­tine said crit­ics of the radar were fear-mon­ger­ing and T&T was nev­er a mil­i­tary tar­get be­cause of host­ing the equip­ment.

He said the time had come for T&T to im­prove its se­cu­ri­ty in­fra­struc­ture to en­sure To­ba­go and the coun­try as a whole re­main safe.

To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Regi­nald MacLean told Guardian Me­dia he was stunned by the ex­it of the radar and US per­son­nel.

“I am a lit­tle bit as­ton­ished it has gone. Re­al­ly and tru­ly, as far as I am con­cerned, they should have kept it. I just hope the US would keep as­sist­ing us with what we need as­sis­tance for.”

For­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith yes­ter­day said the ex­it of the US radar was not a death knell to T&T’s se­cu­ri­ty.

He con­ced­ed, how­ev­er, that T&T needs to in­vest in mod­ern equip­ment to bol­ster its na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus.

“Radars come and radars go. It is not the end of the world. T&T can­not re­ly pri­mar­i­ly on a US radar,” Grif­fith said.

“We have been in­volved in so many dif­fer­ent things in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty for the last few decades. We al­so need to un­der­stand we have our own radar. What we don’t do is utilise it prop­er­ly.”

Grif­fith al­so said Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro needs to em­brace tech­nol­o­gy in the bat­tle against crim­i­nals.

“This is the same CoP that claims that the US radar was in­stru­men­tal in find­ing drugs in the Ca­roni Swamp. Is he say­ing now be­cause of the ab­sence of that radar, we can­not find drugs in the Ca­roni Swamp? I beg to dif­fer,” he said.

“What is re­quired is, in­stead of that radar, are drones. Drones that can turn night in­to day, that can be two kilo­me­tres in the air and lock on­to ves­sels en­ter­ing our area of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in our wa­ters, lock on­to ve­hi­cles and as­sist in op­er­a­tions. That is the tech­nol­o­gy we need to em­brace.”

For­mer De­fence Force Com­man­der Nor­man Din­di­al al­so said he is not sur­prised the radar has been re­moved.

How­ev­er, he said he be­lieved this was be­cause the US is cur­rent­ly re­de­ploy­ing its mil­i­tary as­sets to the Mid­dle East to as­sist in the war against Iran.

He said the con­flict, which start­ed Feb­ru­ary 28, has stretched US re­sources thin and the radar would be bet­ter utilised in the Gulf re­gion than in Crown Point.

“The US is ac­tive­ly repo­si­tion­ing all its mil­i­tary as­sets, in­clud­ing air de­fence sys­tems and radars, to the Mid­dle East. So far, the US has spent about US$4 bil­lion in mil­i­tary as­sets and hard­ware and the Ira­ni­ans have tak­en out all the radar and sen­sor sys­tems around the Gulf.”

He said the G/ATOR radar, man­u­fac­tured by Northrop Grum­man, is like­ly to be used to help de­fend Is­rael from Iran­ian at­tacks.

“We have a $50 mil­lion piece of equip­ment sit­ting here in To­ba­go, sup­pos­ed­ly to de­tect drug traf­fick­ers and drug ships, which we know it is not built to do.

“This radar is sit­ting here do­ing ab­solute­ly noth­ing, so it is strate­gic for the US to re­de­ploy this as­set and use it more ef­fec­tive­ly for where it is need­ed.”

Din­di­al said the radar has “com­plet­ed its task of that in­cur­sion in Venezuela.”

He said the re­de­ploy­ment shows the US is re­cal­i­brat­ing its war strate­gies in the bat­tle against Iran.

The mil­i­tary spe­cial­ist said the radar takes about 30 min­utes to dis­man­tle and 30 min­utes to as­sem­ble.

“A four-man ma­rine team can set it up and have it op­er­a­tional in less than four hours.”

Radar Time­line

Late No­vem­ber 2025 — THA seeks clar­i­fi­ca­tion

The Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly pub­licly sought an­swers from cen­tral gov­ern­ment af­ter the radar’s ex­is­tence was con­firmed:

“The Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary … is seek­ing full clar­i­fi­ca­tion from the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment on the in­stal­la­tion of a Unit­ed States sup­port­ed radar sys­tem at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.”

No­vem­ber 25, 2025 - PM de­fends se­cre­cy on radar

PM de­fends her rea­sons for not di­vulging all the in­for­ma­tion on the radar.

“Since it is a sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue which pro­vides for the pro­tec­tion of our ter­ri­to­ry and cit­i­zens, I did not think it was wise on Wednes­day out­side the Par­lia­ment to pub­licly broad­cast to nar­co and hu­man traf­fick­ers as well as oth­er crim­i­nals that we were in­stalling a radar. It would be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to our cit­i­zens’ safe­ty. ... The radar is sole­ly for the mon­i­tor­ing and sur­veil­lance of our ter­ri­to­ry. The radar is not for use in any ac­tion in Venezuela.”

No­vem­ber 29, 2025 — PM on lack of pri­or no­ti­fi­ca­tion to THA

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­plained why THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine was not in­formed about the radar be­fore:

“Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is not a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC), and as such, was not in­formed be­fore­hand about the ar­rival and in­stal­la­tion of a tem­po­rary US mil­i­tary radar sys­tem on the is­land.”

Ear­ly De­cem­ber 2025 — PM de­fends radar se­cre­cy and pur­pose

PM de­fend­ed her de­ci­sion not to re­veal de­tails ini­tial­ly, say­ing dis­clo­sure would have com­pro­mised na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty:

“Since it is a sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue … I did not think it was wise … to pub­licly broad­cast … that we were in­stalling a radar. It would be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to our cit­i­zens’ safe­ty.”

She al­so de­nied that the pres­ence was a mil­i­tary force aimed at of­fen­sive ac­tion:

“It is not a mil­i­tary force as such. We are not about to launch any cam­paign against Venezuela.”

De­cem­ber 11, 2025 — PM on radar’s op­er­a­tional im­pact

Ad­dress­ing a pub­lic event, the Prime Min­is­ter high­light­ed the radar’s role in law en­force­ment:

“…it helped po­lice to seize $171 mil­lion [worth of mar­i­jua­na] in an un­manned boat in the Ca­roni Swamp.”

De­cem­ber 15, 2025 — For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry state­ment

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers de­scribed radar in­stal­la­tion as part of on­go­ing se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion, af­firm­ing re­gion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion:

“Joint mil­i­tary train­ing ex­er­cis­es, en­hanced sur­veil­lance ca­pa­bil­i­ties and the in­stal­la­tion of a radar sys­tem used in nar­cotics in­ter­dic­tion.”

Jan 2026 — Far­ley Au­gus­tine on radar in­stal­la­tion au­thor­i­ty

At a meet­ing in To­ba­go, Au­gus­tine made clear that if de­ci­sion mak­ing was his alone, he would have re­ject­ed the radar and re­lat­ed air­port ac­cess:

“Yes, I would have (re­ject­ed the in­stal­la­tion of the radar and US mil­i­tary ac­cess)… Be­cause … gov­er­nance must be about what the peo­ple of To­ba­go want.”

Jan­u­ary 8, 2026 — THA Chief Sec­re­tary on con­di­tion­al op­po­si­tion

Far­ley Au­gus­tine, while clar­i­fy­ing his po­si­tion, is­sued a con­di­tion­al warn­ing about radar mis­use:

“If I had in­for­ma­tion it was used to as­sist the Unit­ed States in at­tack­ing Venezuela … I would mash up that radar my­self.”

Feb­ru­ary 28, 2026 — PM re­veals cost to op­er­ate radar

“I don’t know why there was such a big noise be­cause a few peo­ple were here from the US mil­i­tary in To­ba­go with the radar. You know they are pay­ing US$3 mil­lion a day for that radar. Not us. They are pay­ing that. There­fore, they kept some of their mil­i­tary per­son­nel there to en­sure that the radar would be safe.”

March 13, 2026 — De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge on radar re­place­ment

Sturge ac­knowl­edged the radar’s role, cost, and the Gov­ern­ment’s work on a re­place­ment:

“It is cost­ly, so what we are in the process of work­ing out is a re­place­ment — some­thing that is equal­ly as ef­fec­tive.”

March 15, 2026 — THA con­firms US troop de­par­ture

Most re­cent state­ment from the THA, re­it­er­at­ed by Keigon De­noon on be­half of Far­ley Au­gus­tine:

“The US mil­i­tary would be leav­ing the is­land with­in days.”