Farley: Majority of US troops gone from island

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has said the ma­jor­i­ty of Unit­ed States troops in To­ba­go have left the is­land.

The US Marines ar­rived un­der a veil of se­cre­cy in No­vem­ber, with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ini­tial­ly hes­i­tant to re­veal their pres­ence.

She lat­er re­vealed that they were here to build a road in To­ba­go and as­sist with sur­veil­lance us­ing a mil­i­tary-grade radar sys­tem.

On March 16, Guardian Me­dia con­firmed the dis­man­tling of the radar at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Crown Point.

It was flown out days lat­er aboard a US mil­i­tary car­go air­craft.

US troops, who had been seen at the Grafton Beach Re­sort, were spot­ted at the air­port de­part­ing the is­land on Mon­day.

Speak­ing at a post-Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Au­gus­tine said, “It is more than con­firmed that the radar as­sets be­long­ing to the US gov­ern­ment and the US Marines who were here, that they, for the most part, have left the is­land. Those that have not left the is­land as yet prob­a­bly on their way out the is­land. That is ac­tu­al­ly con­sis­tent with what the THA was told be­fore, that it would be a tem­po­rary arrange­ment.”

Au­gus­tine said Per­sad-Bisses­sar had pub­licly men­tioned March as the time­line for their de­par­ture.

“She did point it out, but I don’t think any­one lis­tened to that. There are no sur­pris­es that the radar and US per­son­nel left or are leav­ing the is­land. That was, in fact, said from day one.”

Au­gus­tine said he found it in­ter­est­ing that peo­ple who queried the US pres­ence in To­ba­go were now rais­ing con­cerns over their ex­it.

“That is hu­man­i­ty for you,” he said.

US Marines fail to com­plete road

Au­gus­tine al­so re­vealed that the perime­ter road around the air­port that was be­ing built by the US Marines is in­com­plete.

The To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty leader said the THA would be fin­ish­ing the project.

“We have been work­ing with the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty with get­ting an ad­di­tion­al perime­ter road com­plet­ed. That road was start­ed while the US Marines were here, and the radar was here. That would be com­plet­ed by the THA so that pret­ty soon we would have that cir­cu­lar dri­ve that will fa­cil­i­tate all of the re­quire­ments for the new ter­mi­nal be­ing func­tion­al.”

Guardian Me­dia asked Au­gus­tine what tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits To­ba­go de­rived from the radar in its four months here.

The po­lice have cred­it­ed the radar for a $171 mil­lion drug bust in the Ca­roni Swamp, but its man­u­fac­tur­er, Northrop Grum­man, makes no men­tion of mar­itime ca­pa­bil­i­ties of the radar on its web­site.

Au­gus­tine could not con­firm whether the radar was utilised to help find a fish­ing ves­sel which left Buc­coo on March 2, head­ed for St Vin­cent.

Nei­ther boat nor crew has been seen since.

On Wednes­day, a 73-year-old woman was kid­napped in Trinidad and found less than 12 hours lat­er on the high seas with her kid­nap­pers us­ing in­for­ma­tion from the Radar Cen­tre.

“I’m not say­ing it was not use­ful for our needs. We need more than just that,” Au­gus­tine said.

The Par­latu­vi­er/L’anse Four­mi/Spey­side elec­toral rep­re­sen­ta­tive said he had re­quest­ed the radar re­main in To­ba­go dur­ing meet­ings with US chargée d’af­faires, Dr Jenifer Nei­d­hart de Or­tiz.

He said he al­so asked for as­sis­tance for To­ba­go to get its own sur­veil­lance as­set.

“Where To­ba­go is con­cerned, the is­sue is not just pick­ing up what is leav­ing our shores but hav­ing ad­e­quate ca­pa­bil­i­ties to re­spond in a time­ly man­ner.”

He said fish­er­folk re­main at per­il as their col­leagues of­ten have to re­spond to mar­itime emer­gen­cies be­cause of in­ad­e­quate Coast Guard as­sets.

He said he was flab­ber­gast­ed to hear the Coast Guard did not have fu­el to re­spond to a casi­no rob­bery in Crown Point in No­vem­ber af­ter the ban­dits fled in a pirogue.