Former T&T Defence Chief calls for full disclosure on US military radar in Tobago

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­[email protected]

For­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force Com­man­der Nor­man Din­di­al is call­ing for full trans­paren­cy from the Gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing the in­stal­la­tion of a US mil­i­tary radar sys­tem in To­ba­go.

Din­di­al, who is al­so the NTA’s po­lit­i­cal leader, said he was not sat­is­fied with the re­spons­es giv­en at Sat­ur­day’s press con­fer­ence, where the Min­is­ter of De­fence, To­ba­go’s Chief Sec­re­tary, and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at­tempt­ed to ad­dress pub­lic con­cern but de­clined to an­swer sev­er­al key ques­tions.

He said the min­is­ter’s po­si­tion—that it was “not in the pub­lic in­ter­est” to dis­close the pow­ers un­der which US Marines op­er­at­ed dur­ing the radar in­stal­la­tion—rais­es se­ri­ous sov­er­eign­ty is­sues.

“We are a sov­er­eign coun­try, and our peo­ple must know what pow­ers for­eign sol­diers have while op­er­at­ing here,” Din­di­al said.

At the cen­tre of the con­tro­ver­sy is the Sta­tus of Forces Agree­ment (SO­FA) be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States, the le­gal in­stru­ment gov­ern­ing US mil­i­tary per­son­nel while de­ployed lo­cal­ly.

Din­di­al warned that spec­u­la­tion is grow­ing be­cause the Gov­ern­ment has not re­leased the up­dat­ed agree­ment.

“A Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest may be nec­es­sary to ob­tain the ex­act de­tails of the SO­FA,” he said.

“We have ac­cess to the pre­vi­ous SO­FA. The on­ly pub­licly stat­ed change to the new one was the re­moval of the sun­set clause. But the full doc­u­ment needs to be seen.”

Din­di­al ex­plained that SO­FA agree­ments typ­i­cal­ly give US troops and mil­i­tary con­trac­tors cer­tain le­gal pro­tec­tions, in­clud­ing be­ing sub­ject to US law rather than lo­cal pros­e­cu­tion.

“It es­sen­tial­ly makes US mil­i­tary law su­per­sede our law,” he said.

“If some­thing hap­pens—mur­der, rob­bery, rape—Trinidad and To­ba­go will not pros­e­cute. US mil­i­tary or do­mes­tic law takes prece­dence.”

He stressed that SO­FA does not grant au­to­mat­ic per­mis­sion for US forces to use lo­cal fa­cil­i­ties, land, or air­ports for op­er­a­tions or in­stal­la­tions.

“Us­ing Crown Point Air­port for the radar in­stal­la­tion is not cov­ered un­der SO­FA,” he said.

“That kind of per­mis­sion comes di­rect­ly from the Gov­ern­ment. The Prime Min­is­ter can ap­prove or refuse ac­cess at any time.”

Din­di­al al­so pushed back against sug­ges­tions that Gov­ern­ment is bound by what the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion signed.

“SO­FA is not law. It’s a bi­lat­er­al agree­ment,” he said. “Ei­ther coun­try can with­draw. The Gov­ern­ment does have a choice.”

He said the lack of clear pub­lic in­for­ma­tion is dam­ag­ing trust.

“In a vac­u­um, peo­ple cre­ate their own the­o­ries. Per­cep­tion mat­ters,” he not­ed.

Din­di­al said the Gov­ern­ment ap­pears to be re­ly­ing on “plau­si­ble de­ni­a­bil­i­ty” by point­ing to the SO­FA in­stead of ac­cept­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for au­tho­ris­ing the radar in­stal­la­tion.

“Once peo­ple un­der­stand what the SO­FA ac­tu­al­ly al­lows and what it doesn’t, things be­come clear­er. But the Gov­ern­ment has to ex­plain their de­ci­sions open­ly,” he said.