Prime Minister defends silence on US Marines in Tobago

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she ini­tial­ly with­held full de­tails about the pres­ence of Unit­ed States mil­i­tary per­son­nel in To­ba­go be­cause it was a sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ter. How­ev­er, she added that fol­low­ing per­sis­tent ques­tion­ing from the me­dia, that se­cu­ri­ty ad­van­tage has now been com­pro­mised.

The works at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port were ap­par­ent­ly so sen­si­tive in na­ture that when Guardian Me­dia asked why the Chief Sec­re­tary was not in­formed ear­li­er about the in­stal­la­tion of a radar sys­tem, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar replied, “The Chief Sec­re­tary is not a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and there­fore was not in­formed.”

Pressed on this po­si­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter un­der­scored that Far­ley Au­gus­tine has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for To­ba­go’s af­fairs and ini­tial­ly ap­peared ill-pre­pared for ques­tions by the me­dia about the radar sys­tem.

How­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter re­it­er­at­ed her an­swer that Au­gus­tine is not on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, and that is why he was not in­formed.

Of­fer­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the pur­pose of the radar sys­tem, the Prime Min­is­ter said yes­ter­day, “The Radar is for re­al-time mon­i­tor­ing and sur­veil­lance of our air and sea ter­ri­to­ry. When we en­tered gov­ern­ment, we found an ex­ist­ing radar sys­tem that was func­tion­ing spo­rad­i­cal­ly and in­ef­fi­cient­ly and did not pro­vide cov­er for our en­tire ter­ri­to­ry.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “Our Coast Guard could not even ac­cess da­ta in re­al time, in ad­di­tion to the sys­tem be­ing com­pro­mised. I re­quest­ed as­sis­tance for the sup­ply of a radar sys­tem from the US Em­bassy on a tem­po­rary ba­sis un­til we could get a per­ma­nent re­place­ment for the ex­ist­ing sys­tem.”

On Wednes­day, when a C-17 Globe­mas­ter with the words Air Force em­bla­zoned on its side was spot­ted at To­ba­go’s air­port, a pic­ture of the aero­plane was cir­cu­lat­ed wide­ly on so­cial me­dia, with sev­er­al cit­i­zens ques­tion­ing its pur­pose.

Lat­er that day, out­side the Red House, the Prime Min­is­ter ex­plained that the air­craft had brought in US marines to as­sist in con­struct­ing a road­way. At the time, she said that, to her knowl­edge, there were no longer any marines in the coun­try. How­ev­er, US marines were lat­er seen at a pop­u­lar ho­tel in To­ba­go. The day af­ter, the Prime Min­is­ter clar­i­fied that fol­low­ing fur­ther in­quiries, she had been in­formed that marines were still in To­ba­go and were as­sist­ing with work on the run­way, road­way, and radar sys­tem at To­ba­go’s air­port.

When asked why these de­tails were not giv­en on Wednes­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said it was an in­ten­tion­al omis­sion in the in­ter­est of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“Since it is a sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue which pro­vides for the pro­tec­tion of our ter­ri­to­ry and cit­i­zens, I did not think it was wise on Wednes­day out­side the Par­lia­ment to pub­licly broad­cast to nar­co and hu­man traf­fick­ers, as well as oth­er crim­i­nals, that we were in­stalling a radar. It would be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to our cit­i­zens’ safe­ty,” the Prime Min­is­ter ex­plained.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, how­ev­er, that per­sis­tent ques­tions from the me­dia made it dif­fi­cult to main­tain that po­si­tion.

“But since Guardian Me­dia has al­ready ex­posed this sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty up­grade to lo­cal and transna­tion­al crim­i­nals, there is no rea­son any­more to not con­firm. The se­cu­ri­ty ad­van­tage has been lost.”

Mean­while, the Prime Min­is­ter re­vealed that there are about 100 US mil­i­tary per­son­nel in To­ba­go, but added, “the num­ber fluc­tu­ates as need­ed.”

And de­spite US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump de­clar­ing that land strikes against Venezuela will start “very soon”, the Prime Min­is­ter sought to dis­miss con­cerns that the radar sys­tem would be used as a US as­set in that ef­fort.

“The radar is sole­ly for the mon­i­tor­ing and sur­veil­lance of our ter­ri­to­ry. The radar is not for use in any ac­tion in Venezuela.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so added that a sim­i­lar radar sys­tem will be con­struct­ed with the as­sis­tance of the US in Trinidad as well.

“We will al­so be up­grad­ing radar in­stal­la­tions in Trinidad, as well as our mil­i­tary fa­cil­i­ties,” she said.

She sought to un­der­score that these moves are hap­pen­ing with her ap­proval.

The Prime Min­is­ter has said on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions that this coun­try will not be used as a launch­ing pad for any at­tacks on the peo­ple of Venezuela.

She, how­ev­er, has de­clined to an­swer di­rect­ly if her Gov­ern­ment recog­nis­es Nico­las Maduro as the le­git­i­mate Pres­i­dent of Venezuela.