PNM concerned about lack of transparency on radar

Kay-Marie Fletch­er

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is rais­ing ma­jor con­cerns over what it de­scribes as a trou­bling lack of trans­paren­cy over the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the US mil­i­tary radar that was in­stalled in To­ba­go last year.

PNM deputy po­lit­i­cal leader San­jiv Bood­hu has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of hid­ing de­tails sur­round­ing both the im­ple­men­ta­tion and re­moval of the radar from the ANR Robin­son Air­port site, stat­ing that the coun­try con­tin­ues to be left in the dark over whether the radar was an as­set to Trinidad and To­ba­go or not.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia last evening at a PNM pub­lic meet­ing in La Hor­quet­ta, Bood­hu said, “Just as when the radar came, the pub­lic did not know why, un­der what cir­cum­stances, To­ba­go was not con­sult­ed, just as that hap­pened, it’s gone. No word. No no­tice. No ex­pla­na­tion. We don’t know why and that is our dif­fi­cul­ty with the way that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is ap­proached in Trinidad and To­ba­go un­der this Gov­ern­ment. No word to the peo­ple of this coun­try.”

He said the Gov­ern­ment’s si­lence on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues has left many ques­tions unan­swered.

“We are in the dark. To­ba­go is in the dark. We do not know what this means for To­ba­go. We’ve heard ‘we ex­pect the troops to leave’. When the troops were com­ing, we did not know in the first place, so we ex­pect them to leave hav­ing achieved what? At what cost? What did they bring to the ta­ble? What val­ue did they add to To­ba­go? What threats ex­ist­ed that caused them to come there in the first place that the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go still don’t know about?

“And if there was a risk to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go that caused them to come there, is it neu­tralised? Is it gone away? Can we ex­pect a resur­gence of a risk? And how are the peo­ple of this coun­try to trust this Gov­ern­ment with our safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty if they keep us in the dark and treat us as though every­body in Trinidad and To­ba­go are stu­pid?” He added, “Are we chil­dren? We are not to be told any­thing? As the Min­is­ter of De­fence has said, we have no right to know any­thing and to ask any ques­tions, so as usu­al, the PNM stands ready in de­fence of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Those who are in­ter­est­ed in re­spon­si­ble par­ty pol­i­tics, those who are in­ter­est­ed in re­spon­si­ble gov­er­nance con­tin­ue to look to the PNM. Look around you, we are in­tent on de­liv­er­ing a prop­er re­spon­si­ble ad­dress to the peo­ple of La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro and the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Asked whether the Op­po­si­tion is hap­py that the radar is no longer in To­ba­go, he replied, “We can’t say whether we are pleased be­cause we don’t know why it has left. We don’t know why it came. We don’t know why it left. If it is it has achieved some mis­sion and the coun­try is told that we are safer for its be­ing there and it now leav­ing then maybe we will be hap­py but at this point in time we don’t know if to be hap­py or sad.”

The mil­i­tary-grade ground/air task-ori­ent­ed radar first ap­peared at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Crown Point in No­vem­ber last year.

In Feb­ru­ary, Op­po­si­tion leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les told Guardian Me­dia that the pub­lic ab­solute­ly has the right to know about the pres­ence of the radar, af­ter De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge re­fused to give fur­ther de­tails on the is­sue, ques­tion­ing why the pub­lic need­ed to know about mil­i­tary move­ment on the is­land.