Senator: Radar in Tobago has to go

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The radar which has “in­vad­ed” To­ba­go has to go!

That was the call from Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tor Melanie Roberts-Radg­man, who said the re­cent pres­ence of a US mil­i­tary plane in To­ba­go was a trau­ma­tis­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for To­bag­o­ni­ans, who didn’t know what was go­ing on and re­main fear­ful to date.

Roberts-Radg­man raised the is­sue in Tues­day’s Sen­ate de­bate on the Home In­va­sion (Self De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) bill 2025, liken­ing the pres­ence of the US mil­i­tary plane to an in­va­sion of To­ba­go.

Say­ing she em­pathised with sen­a­tors who had ex­pe­ri­enced home in­va­sion, Roberts-Rad­man al­so said she sup­port­ed the rights of all cit­i­zens to pro­tect their homes and them­selves against any in­va­sion that threat­en lives, liveli­hoods and gen­er­al well-be­ing in T&T, “par­tic­u­lar­ly the peo­ple of To­ba­go.”

Roberts-Radg­man said, “We have in re­cent times been af­fect­ed with a lot of home in­va­sions. The sto­ries are quite scary. A few days ago, per­sons re­sid­ing in the west­ern part of To­ba­go were star­tled awake by a very un­fa­mil­iar sound of a mil­i­tary air­craft leav­ing the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

“We did not give per­mis­sion for such an air­craft to op­er­ate, we didn’t in­vite them on our prop­er­ty, we were not con­sult­ed on this. And this took place near homes and busi­ness­es, as fam­i­lies slept, they were star­tled awake, un­sure of what was tak­ing place. They didn’t know if some­one was break­ing in or if some­thing had ex­plod­ed.”

She con­tin­ued, “They didn’t know what was hap­pen­ing, they were fear­ful and re­main fear­ful at this time. I can tell you for a fact, as I have a fam­i­ly mem­ber who has not re­turned to her home since that ex­pe­ri­ence, as she’s in fear, con­cern and un­cer­tain. She doesn’t know what’s hap­pen­ing. We have been in­vad­ed by a for­eign mil­i­tary - we did not give per­mis­sion…”

Roberts-Radg­man was, how­ev­er, halt­ed by Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark, who said the bill wasn’t about mil­i­tary in­va­sion but home in­va­sion.

Roberts-Radg­man said she was try­ing to make the con­nec­tion be­tween the fear per­sons ex­pe­ri­enced when they were star­tled awake. She not­ed the Sen­ate had heard the ex­pe­ri­ences of cer­tain sen­a­tors and most of those in­va­sions took place while peo­ple slept or did reg­u­lar tasks at home.

“So, what I’m do­ing is con­nect­ing the fear and un­cer­tain­ty of be­ing in your home and hav­ing this kind of in­tru­sion and hav­ing ab­solute­ly no idea what has been hap­pen­ing. It has been a trau­ma­tis­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. I have to say on be­half of the peo­ple of To­ba­go - the radar has to go.”

Roberts-Radg­man said the bill wouldn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly an­swer T&T’s crime prob­lem and she didn’t feel it would de­ter crim­i­nals even when they are faced with a dead­ly force re­sponse.