Akash Sama­roo

Re­port­ing from Scar­bor­ough

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

Akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal par­ties in To­ba­go have ex­pressed shock and con­cern over what they be­lieve may be a Unit­ed States “mil­i­tary base” op­er­at­ing along­side the con­tro­ver­sial US-in­stalled radar at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

On No­vem­ber 30, Guardian Me­dia ob­tained drone footage of the heav­i­ly guard­ed, cor­doned-off fa­cil­i­ty hous­ing the radar. The im­ages show sev­er­al trucks and util­i­ty ve­hi­cles po­si­tioned with­in the re­strict­ed area, along with a small tent and an­oth­er tem­po­rary struc­ture lo­cat­ed close to the equip­ment, sug­gest­ing use for op­er­a­tional or shel­ter pur­pos­es. A num­ber of portable toi­lets were al­so ob­served at the site.

While the spin­ning AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR radar is vis­i­ble at the end of Kil­gwyn Bay Road in Bon Ac­cord, ac­cess to the site is re­strict­ed by met­al bar­ri­ers and a locked gate draped with black fab­ric bear­ing a sign read­ing “Emer­gency Ex­it No Ob­struc­tion”.

A black, gal­vanised fence en­clos­es the area sur­round­ing the radar, ris­ing to near­ly 30 feet in height in some sec­tions. Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that short­ly af­ter the radar was in­stalled, heavy winds top­pled a much short­er bar­ri­er around the mil­i­tary equip­ment. When re­pairs were car­ried out, the fence was re­built at its cur­rent height, and the radar was al­so repo­si­tioned a short dis­tance away.

There are some rooms for rent near­by; how­ev­er, one busi­ness place, which asked for anonymi­ty, said short­ly af­ter the radar was in­stalled, they were cau­tioned by mil­i­tary per­son­nel to not al­low guests in­to cer­tain rooms that could have an ac­cess view to the cor­doned-off fa­cil­i­ty.

Mean­while, the few res­i­dents liv­ing near­by po­lite­ly de­clined to of­fer their two-storey homes as van­tage points, say­ing they feared that any im­ages or video could be traced back to them. In any event, res­i­dents not­ed that even from their bal­conies the view re­mains ob­scured by the gal­vanised fence and tall trees in the area.

Even from Kil­gwyn Bay Beach, which runs ad­ja­cent to the radar fa­cil­i­ty, there is no clear view of what is in­side the com­pound or the ex­tent to which the equip­ment has changed over the past three weeks.

Guardian Me­dia ob­served a white van parked along a pri­vate road­way on the perime­ter of the site for sev­er­al hours. It was al­so not­ed that no se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel were seen pre­vent­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic from ap­proach­ing to with­in a stone’s throw from the radar. How­ev­er, the black gal­vanised fence en­sured that on­ly the top of the radar could be seen and noth­ing more.

At­tempts to con­tact Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine yes­ter­day to show him the im­age and ask for his com­ment on the mat­ter were un­suc­cess­ful.

As the radar con­tin­ued to spin and hum in Bon Ac­cord, five kilo­me­tres away in Buc­coo, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment To­ba­go Po­lit­i­cal Leader An­cil Den­nis ex­pressed dis­may af­ter be­ing shown the drone im­age ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia.

“It ap­pears to me that some­what of a mil­i­tary base has been es­tab­lished there. I have ab­solute­ly no doubt that there is more in the mor­tar than the pes­tle, and the peo­ple of To­ba­go and the peo­ple of this coun­try must con­tin­ue to de­mand an­swers as to what is re­al­ly tak­ing place on our is­land,” he told Guardian Me­dia.

He added, “This lev­el of dis­re­spect, where we are see­ing, based on that pic­ture, what ap­pears to be a mil­i­tary base es­tab­lished in our air­port, in one of the most pop­u­lous com­mu­ni­ties on the is­land, To­bag­o­ni­ans have been en­dan­gered by this gov­ern­ment in a very dis­re­spect­ful man­ner.”

He lament­ed that To­bag­o­ni­ans still do not know how many US mil­i­tary per­son­nel are on the is­land and what ju­ris­dic­tion they have.

“The Gov­ern­ment is not be­ing hon­est. The Chief Sec­re­tary is not be­ing hon­est. And we need to con­tin­ue to de­mand an­swers. I am not even sure of the num­ber of them here. I’m hear­ing talks of 200, some peo­ple say­ing 300, but we don’t know.”

Den­nis said if the PNM wins the THA elec­tions on Jan­u­ary 12, it will be de­mand­ing a meet­ing with the Prime Min­is­ter with the aim of re­mov­ing the mil­i­tary as­set. He said if Trinidad has an is­sue with nar­co traf­fick­ing, then the radar should be tak­en there.

Mean­while, the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance’s leader, Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus, said she felt de­pressed af­ter be­ing shown the im­age by Guardian Me­dia.

“Every­body else on the glob­al mar­ket is dis­cussing that To­ba­go is re­al­ly a mil­i­tary base. But to ac­tu­al­ly have the con­fir­ma­tion is very de­press­ing. Be­cause you’re like, Oh my God, it’s re­al. It’s re­al!”

The IDA leader, who seemed close to tears, added, “It’s re­al­ly shock­ing, stun­ning, fright­en­ing. I mean, those are all the fears I have go­ing through now in­side of me. As a To­bag­on­ian, know­ing that this has been done to us.

“We have been liv­ing in un­cer­tain­ty. Not know­ing, and every day some­thing comes up, the sto­ry changes. And it’s not a good feel­ing for the peo­ple to be liv­ing in un­cer­tain­ty. All the anx­i­ety, all the fears. No­body’s telling us how to pre­pare, what to do, or what do they have in store for us should some­thing hap­pen.”

She be­lieves the radar has noth­ing to do with nar­co-traf­fick­ing and is there as a mis­sile in­ter­cep­tor and mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion if, in fact, war breaks out be­tween the US and Venezuela.

At­tempts to con­tact De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge yes­ter­day evening were un­suc­cess­ful.

Some To­bag­o­ni­ans con­cerned, con­fused

To­bag­o­ni­ans, mean­while, have ex­pressed a mix­ture of mea­sured con­cern, con­fu­sion and in­dif­fer­ence. “I think the Gov­ern­ment or THA should step in to say what is tak­ing place. Every­body wants to know what is tak­ing place be­cause it is hap­pen­ing on our is­land, and we are sup­posed to know what is tak­ing place,” said Lin­da Mur­ray, a Pem­broke res­i­dent.

Kil­gwyn Bay Road res­i­dent Abra­ham George said, “To be hon­est, I don’t re­al­ly know what to say about the radar. They say it’s for drug traf­fick­ers and dif­fer­ent things, but some of them want it to move. But I don’t know if it’s for good or if it’s for bad.”

And a woman from Low­lands, who asked on­ly to be iden­ti­fied as Va­lerie, told Guardian Me­dia, “As every­body else, I’m just con­cerned and hop­ing that, you know, every­thing comes out qui­et­ly. What­ev­er it is seem­ing­ly hap­pen­ing be­hind the scenes, I’m hop­ing that every­thing turns out qui­et­ly.”