PM admits US military in Tobago, assisting with radar surveillance upgrades

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

One day af­ter say­ing there were no Unit­ed States Marines in the coun­try, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed that a new radar is be­ing in­stalled by the Unit­ed States in To­ba­go to mon­i­tor ac­tiv­i­ties in­side and out­side Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter dis­trib­ut­ing lap­tops at the Pe­nal Sec­ondary School yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she has con­firmed that US troops are still in the coun­try and have been as­sist­ing with sur­veil­lance up­grades in To­ba­go.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s con­fir­ma­tion came af­ter mem­bers of the pub­lic re­port­ed see­ing US Marines at a pop­u­lar To­ba­go ho­tel in re­cent days.

Flight-track­ing plat­forms al­so de­tect­ed mil­i­tary air­craft land­ing at ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, prompt­ing in­creas­ing ques­tions about the pres­ence and ac­tiv­i­ties of US per­son­nel.

On Wednes­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed there were no US Marines in the coun­try as all of them had left. Around 350 troops with the 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit had been in this coun­try from No­vem­ber 16 to 21 to con­duct joint train­ing ex­er­cis­es with the T&T De­fence Force. But when pressed about the Marines in To­ba­go, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “On fur­ther in­quiries, yes, in To­ba­go, there are some. US Marines are there, and they’re help­ing us with the air­port.”

She ex­plained their work in­cludes in­fra­struc­ture and se­cu­ri­ty sup­port.

“They’re help­ing with the run­way and the road and a radar,” she ex­plained, adding that the in­stal­la­tion will “help us to im­prove our sur­veil­lance and the in­tel­li­gence of the radar for the nar­co-traf­fick­ers in our wa­ters.”

The Prime Min­is­ter did not ex­plain why her state­ments changed with­in 24 hours, but she main­tained that the project is tied to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and to ef­forts to counter il­lic­it drug traf­fick­ing.

On­ly on Tues­day, the Prime Min­is­ter met with the US mil­i­tary’s top of­fi­cial, Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen­er­al Dan Caine, where they shared their views on re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges, in­clud­ing “the desta­bil­is­ing ef­fects of il­lic­it nar­cotics, arms, and hu­man traf­fick­ing, and transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion ac­tiv­i­ties.”

Since Oc­to­ber, the vis­it of US troops and mil­i­tary as­sets to this coun­try has in­ten­si­fied.

On Oc­to­ber 26, the guid­ed mis­sile de­stroy­er, USS Grave­ly docked at the Port of Port-of-Spain along with mem­bers of the 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit for train­ing and con­tin­ued co-op­er­a­tion. The Grave­ly left on Oc­to­ber 30.

Ear­li­er this month, the MEU re­turned to T&T for joint train­ing ex­er­cis­es.

Mean­while, a day af­ter US Sec­re­tary of War Pe­te Hegseth vis­it­ed the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, where that coun­try’s pres­i­dent an­nounced that it had au­tho­rised the US gov­ern­ment to use re­strict­ed ar­eas on the is­land to help in the fight against drug traf­fick­ing, Hegseth vis­it­ed sailors on the USS Ger­ald R Ford air­craft car­ri­er. Yes­ter­day, the Pen­ta­gon post­ed a video show­ing Hegseth speak­ing in­to a pub­lic ad­dress sys­tem, wish­ing all those aboard a hap­py Thanks­giv­ing and say­ing he was pray­ing for the two Na­tion­al Guard sol­diers who were shot in Wash­ing­ton, DC, on Wednes­day.

For­mer di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Coastal Radar Sur­veil­lance Cen­tre (NCRSC), Ret’d Lieu­tenant Com­man­der Nor­man Din­di­al, who is al­so po­lit­i­cal leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance, ques­tioned whether T&T was giv­ing up on its sov­er­eign­ty by al­low­ing the US to in­stall its radar in To­ba­go.

Din­di­al said: “Trinidad and To­ba­go al­ready have the ca­pa­bil­i­ties to track ma­rine tar­gets of in­ter­est and sus­pect­ed go-fast drug boats around the en­tire­ty of its mar­itime ju­ris­dic­tion and even up the Caribbean is­lands with the cur­rent so­phis­ti­cat­ed Is­raeli radar sys­tem in its pos­ses­sion, some­thing that the US want­ed to take con­trol of for some time now.”

He added: “The in­stal­la­tion of a radar at Crown Point Air­port sug­gests that this ca­pa­bil­i­ty is for long-range air sur­veil­lance and quite pos­si­bly tar­get ac­qui­si­tion, not ma­rine tar­gets and boats.”