Radar row escalates

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

While the Op­po­si­tion Leader is de­mand­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter dis­close who con­trols da­ta from the new­ly in­stalled mil­i­tary radar in To­ba­go, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has fired back, ac­cus­ing Pen­ne­lope Beck­les of at­tempt­ing to ex­pose sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­for­ma­tion to aid crim­i­nals linked to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

At yes­ter­day’s Op­po­si­tion me­dia brief­ing in Port-of-Spain, Beck­les said Per­sad-Bisses­sar has to come clean re­gard­ing the re­al in­ten­tion and han­dling of the con­tro­ver­sial radar in­stalled by the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Crown Point.

Beck­les said while the PNM is very con­scious of how na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters are to be han­dled, the pop­u­la­tion is en­ti­tled to know what is hap­pen­ing to the da­ta be­ing col­lect­ed by the radar.

“The peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go are en­ti­tled to know where would that in­for­ma­tion be in­stalled and whether Trinidad and To­ba­go has any ac­cess to that radar. The peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go al­so need to know where is the da­ta be­ing col­lect­ed and where is the da­ta be­ing processed,” she said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said it is not enough for the Prime Min­is­ter to say it is a se­cret.

“The pop­u­la­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go is en­ti­tled to know what did that radar cost, who in­stalled that radar, whether any Trinida­di­an or To­bag­on­ian has been trained to op­er­ate that radar,” Beck­les said.

The Prime Min­is­ter did re­spond to Beck­les lat­er that day. How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not give the an­swers Beck­les was seek­ing.

In a me­dia re­lease, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “The ques­tions raised by the PNM re­gard­ing the new­ly in­stalled radar are a des­per­ate ef­fort to force the gov­ern­ment to dis­close sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­for­ma­tion to aid the PNM’s long-sus­pect­ed lo­cal drug mafia fi­nanciers and Venezue­lan crim­i­nal col­lab­o­ra­tors to cir­cum­vent sur­veil­lance.”

The Prime Min­is­ter ex­plained that the new radar sys­tem, “as­sists with the de­tec­tion of Venezue­lan crude oil sanc­tion-bust­ing ac­tiv­i­ties and traf­fick­ers who have been con­duct­ing de­liv­er­ies of nar­cotics, firearms, am­mu­ni­tion and mi­grants in­to our coun­try from Venezuela. The lat­est equip­ment en­hances our sur­veil­lance ca­pa­bil­i­ties and adds a su­pe­ri­or lay­er of pro­tec­tion that was pre­vi­ous­ly un­avail­able.”

She, in turn, had four ques­tions to Beck­les and urged the Op­po­si­tion Leader to call a me­dia brief­ing to an­swer them.

List­ing them, the Prime Min­is­ter wrote, “Dis­close to the cit­i­zens how long the PNM has known that the pre­vi­ous radar sys­tem has been com­pro­mised. Make pub­lic the names of the lo­cal busi­ness­peo­ple af­fil­i­at­ed with the PNM and lo­cal drug mafia who have had il­le­gal ac­cess to clas­si­fied radar sur­veil­lance in­for­ma­tion.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so called on the PNM to, “ex­plain why the ex­ist­ing radar sys­tem op­er­at­ed un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment for years, did not de­tect oil tankers en­gaged in the ship-to-ship trans­fer of sanc­tioned Venezue­lan oil with­in Trinida­di­an wa­ters, which led to the ob­tain­ing of doc­u­men­ta­tion stat­ing that Trinidad was the port of ori­gin for this oil and not Venezuela.”

And fi­nal­ly, “Ex­plain to the coun­try whether the PNM’s an­ti-Amer­i­can nar­ra­tive to re­move the Amer­i­can-sup­plied radar sys­tem is re­al­ly due to pres­sure or black­mail from the lo­cal drug mafia and the pre­vi­ous PNM Gov­ern­ment’s crude oil sanc­tion-bust­ing Venezue­lan col­lab­o­ra­tors.”

The Prime Min­is­ter con­clud­ed that this coun­try wel­comes the sup­port of its in­ter­na­tion­al al­lies and the on­go­ing com­mit­ment should in­spire con­fi­dence and col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty among cit­i­zens and stake­hold­ers.

Dur­ing the PNM’s me­dia brief­ing, Beck­les said the par­ty was deeply of­fend­ed by what she de­scribed as the Prime Min­is­ter’s at­tempt to link the PNM to crim­i­nals and drug traf­fick­ers. Beck­les al­so re­vealed that she is cur­rent­ly ex­plor­ing her le­gal op­tions in re­sponse to the re­marks.

“Now I al­so want to put on record that I’m go­ing to be ex­plor­ing my op­tions as leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment as it re­lates to the is­sue of defama­tion be­cause this is the sec­ond time the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter has made this al­le­ga­tion and the Prime Min­is­ter is at­tempt­ing to con­vince the pub­lic that there is an an­ti-Amer­i­can sen­ti­ment as it re­lates to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and that is ab­solute­ly false,” Beck­les said.