Antigua and Barbuda Defence Force denies US military presence

The An­tigua and Bar­bu­da De­fence Force (ABDF) is deny­ing re­ports of unau­tho­rised Amer­i­can mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty on the is­land, say­ing that the pres­ence of Cana­di­an mil­i­tary of­fi­cials is a re­sult of the plan­ning process for the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) to be held here next year.

In a state­ment, the ABDF said that there has been “no con­fir­ma­tion or au­tho­ri­sa­tion of Amer­i­can sol­diers con­duct­ing sur­veys or op­er­a­tions with­in the city of St. John’s or any oth­er part of the is­land.

“The Cana­di­an mil­i­tary per­son­nel cur­rent­ly on is­land are present as part of on­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive plan­ning and prepara­to­ry ex­er­cis­es in sup­port of the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing CHOGM 2026,” the ABDF said, adding that the part­ner­ship be­tween the two coun­tries forms part of a broad­er frame­work of co­op­er­a­tion aimed at strength­en­ing lo­cal readi­ness, co­or­di­na­tion, and se­cu­ri­ty plan­ning in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the high-pro­file in­ter­na­tion­al event.

The ABDF re­it­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to work­ing close­ly with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to en­sure the safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, and smooth ex­e­cu­tion of CHOGM 2026.

“The pub­lic is en­cour­aged to re­ly on of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels of the ABDF for ver­i­fied in­for­ma­tion and to re­frain from spread­ing or act­ing up­on un­con­firmed re­ports,” the state­ment said.

Mean­while, Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, Shirley Botch­wey ar­rived here for the plan­ning meet­ing say­ing “it is a plea­sure to be in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da as we take the first steps on our shared jour­ney to­wards CHOGM 2026.

“I look for­ward to meet­ing lead­ers, young peo­ple, and com­mu­ni­ties here to cel­e­brate the spir­it of col­lab­o­ra­tion that dri­ves us all, and to build mo­men­tum for a CHOGM that de­liv­ers re­al im­pact and shared pros­per­i­ty across our 56 mem­ber states,”  she added.

Dur­ing her vis­it, the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al will meet with Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al  Sir Rod­ney Williams and Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne.

“Host­ing CHOGM 2026 presents tremen­dous op­por­tu­ni­ties for An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, from strength­en­ing trade and in­vest­ment to build­ing new part­ner­ships across the Com­mon­wealth. The Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al’s vis­it helps set the stage for a suc­cess­ful sum­mit that will de­liv­er re­al ben­e­fits to our peo­ple,”  said An­tigua and Bar­bu­da’s High Com­mis­sion­er to the Unit­ed King­dom Karen-Mae Hill.

CMC/fh/ir/2025

ST. JOHN’S, An­tigua, Nov 4, CMC –