US military radar dismantled, flown out of Tobago

STEPHON NICHOLAS

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Four months af­ter its ar­rival, the US-sup­plied mil­i­tary-grade radar sys­tem has left To­ba­go.

At 11.56 am yes­ter­day, a US mil­i­tary air­craft touched down at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Crown Point.

It stayed ap­prox­i­mate­ly two hours at the air­port and nev­er switched off its en­gine.

At a van­tage point on the south­ern side of the air­port, Guardian Me­dia could see a fork­lift load­ing crates in­to the back of the air­craft.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly two hours lat­er, the air­craft de­part­ed the is­land head­ed for Puer­to Ri­co. How­ev­er, just be­fore it ar­rived there, it took off its transpon­der.

The mil­i­tary air­craft’s stop in To­ba­go came 24 hours af­ter Guardian Me­dia con­firmed the dis­man­tling of the con­tro­ver­sial radar for its im­pend­ing re­moval.

The radar had ar­rived in To­ba­go in No­vem­ber amid a shroud of se­cre­cy as Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ini­tial­ly de­clined to re­veal its pres­ence and that of US troops. She said she was hes­i­tant to in­form the pub­lic as it was a mat­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

US mil­i­tary per­son­nel have been on the is­land since No­vem­ber, man­ag­ing the radar, which re­port­ed­ly cost US$3 mil­lion per day to op­er­ate.

They have main­tained a con­sis­tent pres­ence at Grafton Beach Re­sort in Black Rock but are ex­pect­ed to de­part the is­land soon.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine last week said the US troops will be leav­ing “in a cou­ple of days.”

How­ev­er, their ex­act de­par­ture date re­mains un­known ow­ing to “na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons.”

In ex­plain­ing the pres­ence of the radar, Per­sad-Bisses­sar pre­vi­ous­ly said it would aid in drug in­ter­dic­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly out of South Amer­i­ca.

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence in To­ba­go in No­vem­ber, said drug traf­fick­ers were us­ing drones to trans­port drugs to Trinidad and To­ba­go. He said the radar would as­sist T&T in keep­ing up with the tech­nol­o­gy and clamp down on crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, in De­cem­ber, claimed the radar was in­stru­men­tal in a $171 mil­lion drug bust at the Ca­roni Swamp.

How­ev­er, lo­cal na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts had ar­gued that the radar, man­u­fac­tured by Northrop Grum­man, is not made to track boats, but in­stead mis­siles.

The Op­po­si­tion has in­sist­ed the radar was used as a tool to force regime change in Venezuela. On Jan­u­ary 3, the US forcibly re­moved then-Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro in a mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion in Cara­cas. He is cur­rent­ly in the US fac­ing drug traf­fick­ing charges.

Econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James yes­ter­day said he was de­light­ed the radar was gone and said To­ba­go did not get any val­ue from its pres­ence.

“It’s just serv­ing the Amer­i­can in­ter­est, I’m glad to see it go,” he said.

James said the lack of trans­paren­cy by au­thor­i­ties on the mat­ter showed the press­ing need for con­sti­tu­tion­al change.

“There is no mech­a­nism in the coun­try for trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty or con­sen­sus-build­ing. It is time for us to get about the busi­ness of set­ting up a con­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ment un­der which we can get what we dream of for ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and con­sen­sus-ori­ent­ed gov­ern­ment.”

He said small-is­land states would con­tin­ue to suf­fer and fight like “crabs in a bar­rel” if changes to gov­er­nance struc­tures are not made.

“It’s a con­se­quence of an in­ad­e­quate and in­ap­pro­pri­ate sys­tem of gov­ern­ment, from Cu­ba right down to T&T and Guyana.”

He warned small-is­land states to be­ware of im­pe­ri­al­ist agen­das or risk re­turn­ing to the colo­nial days.

“That didn’t prove to turn out so well for us, and if we go back there, it wouldn’t turn out well again, if his­to­ry is to be our guide.”

Mean­while, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah said the ab­sence of the radar has cre­at­ed “an op­er­a­tional vac­u­um that must be care­ful­ly as­sessed.”

He said, “If the sys­tem played the role pre­vi­ous­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the pub­lic, name­ly as­sist­ing in the mon­i­tor­ing of il­lic­it mar­itime move­ments, then its ab­sence may re­duce ear­ly de­tec­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ty in one of the most sen­si­tive mar­itime cor­ri­dors in the re­gion. In the fight against transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime, sur­veil­lance gaps can be quick­ly ex­ploit­ed by so­phis­ti­cat­ed traf­fick­ing net­works in­volved in nar­cotics, il­le­gal arms move­ments, and hu­man traf­fick­ing.”

He said the fo­cus should be on build­ing sus­tain­able sys­tems to en­sure se­cu­ri­ty is not com­pro­mised.

“Coun­tries must en­sure that core el­e­ments of their na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ar­chi­tec­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly bor­der sur­veil­lance, mar­itime mon­i­tor­ing, and in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing, re­main na­tion­al­ly owned and con­trolled.”