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Friday, February 21, 2025

Moonilal wants probe into how Coast Guard lost mystery vessel

by

Dareece Polo
24 days ago
20250128
The pirogue containing several decomposing bodies which was discovered near the Casia platform, off the south-east coast of Trinidad.

The pirogue containing several decomposing bodies which was discovered near the Casia platform, off the south-east coast of Trinidad.

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal is call­ing for an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to how the T&T Coast Guard lost a for­eign ves­sel it was tow­ing with five bod­ies on board over the week­end.

Ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress' Mon­day Night Re­port at the Ch­agua­nas South Sec­ondary School, Mooni­lal ex­pressed be­wil­der­ment over the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard's (TTCG) han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion. He ref­er­enced a TTCG state­ment in­di­cat­ing that the small fish­ing ves­sel was ini­tial­ly spot­ted by work­ers on the Cas­sia oil rig.

"The Coast Guard put out one of the most dis­gust­ing, I can't de­scribe, but they put out a press re­lease on the week­end. They say 'thank you' to the per­son and the peo­ple who give them the in­for­ma­tion on the boat, but if all yuh see it again, call them," he joked as the au­di­ence laughed.

In a state­ment, the TTCG said it first re­ceived a re­port on the ves­sel at 2.22 pm on Sat­ur­day. A pa­trol boat was dis­patched and with help from near­by ves­sels, of­fi­cers lo­cat­ed the de­te­ri­o­rat­ed pirogue. It said at 12.45 am, the Coast Guard crew suc­cess­ful­ly at­tached a tow­line and be­gan trans­port­ing the ves­sel to­ward main­land Trinidad. How­ev­er, at 4 am, the tow­line sep­a­rat­ed in rough seas east of Ma­yaro and the ves­sel drift­ed out of sight and is be­lieved to have sunk.

Mooni­lal, the UNC shad­ow na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, re­marked, "This would have been fun­ny, had it not been trag­ic. On­ly in Trinidad un­der (Stu­art) Young and (Fitzger­ald) Hinds, the Coast Guard could tie a boat and then lose it."

Young, the cur­rent En­er­gy Min­is­ter who tipped to be­come prime min­is­ter on Dr Kei­th Row­ley's res­ig­na­tion, was a for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter.

Mooni­lal con­tin­ued, "What ap­pears to be a small fish­ing ves­sel may have sur­vived cross­ing the At­lantic Ocean, the kala pani. It sur­vived like the Fa­tel Raza­ck and come here. Yuh know the Coast Guard find it be­cause some­body tell them it was there. They hook it up with a tow line and then loss it."

Mooni­lal fur­ther ques­tioned the ac­tiv­i­ties of the TTCG of­fi­cers dur­ing the in­ci­dent.

"The Coast Guard ves­sel had 16 men on board. So, what the 16 of them gone to do? To play all fours down­stairs? And then some­body come up­stairs and say, 'aye, way de boat gone?'"

He crit­i­cised the cur­rent state of the TTCG, stat­ing, "That is the Coast Guard un­der Hinds and Stu­art Young. They are ill-equipped, with­out re­sources."

He warned that the dis­cov­ery could in­di­cate in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, sug­gest­ing that agen­cies like the US Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion, In­ter­pol and the FBI might take in­ter­est due to the hu­man re­mains found off Trinidad and To­ba­go's coast.

"This is the on­ly coun­try that the Coast Guard will lose a boat with dead peo­ple. You could imag­ine if it was liv­ing peo­ple?"

He con­clud­ed by call­ing for a com­pre­hen­sive in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the ves­sel's dis­ap­pear­ance, in­volv­ing both lo­cal po­lice and in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies.

"The men or the women on that boat, who, wher­ev­er they are, they came from some­where. They may or may not have been in­volved in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties."


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