Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les con­tin­ues to de­mand clar­i­ty from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s arrange­ments with the Unit­ed States, say­ing cit­i­zens de­serve to know the full ex­tent of any se­cu­ri­ty or mil­i­tary co­op­er­a­tion.

Beck­les said it was on­ly through com­ments made by US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio that the pub­lic learned of this coun­try’s in­clu­sion in a re­gion­al al­liance to com­bat nar­co-traf­fick­ing.

She ques­tioned why such a crit­i­cal de­vel­op­ment had not been dis­closed by the Gov­ern­ment be­fore then.

“It is in­ter­est­ing we are find­ing out more in­for­ma­tion about this from Sen­a­tor Ru­bio than we are find­ing about from this Gov­ern­ment. Had sen­a­tor Ru­bio not said that there was some arrange­ment be­tween Trinidad, Paraguay, Ar­genti­na, Guyana and the Unit­ed States, we would not have known,” Beck­les said af­ter at­tend­ing the fu­ner­al for for­mer MP Lenny Saith in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day.

“Now I think it’s the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Prime Min­is­ter and this Gov­ern­ment to come and tell cit­i­zens and Cari­com what is the arrange­ment that they have be­cause it im­pacts on every­one.”

Her call comes amid es­ca­lat­ing re­gion­al ten­sions fol­low­ing the de­ploy­ment of US mil­i­tary as­sets in wa­ters off Venezuela, a move that has raised con­cerns across the Caribbean.

“We are an is­land and there­fore we un­der­stand, as small is­land states, which is al­ways the con­cern, what is like­ly to hap­pen. It is not just to say you are al­low­ing them ac­cess but what is the arrange­ment that you have, be­cause if you have four coun­tries with that agree­ment, what is it that the oth­er coun­tries are say­ing?”

Beck­les ar­gued that in such a volatile en­vi­ron­ment, trans­paren­cy is vi­tal, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to se­cu­ri­ty agree­ments that could have for­eign pol­i­cy and na­tion­al sov­er­eign­ty im­pli­ca­tions.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader added that si­lence from the Gov­ern­ment on­ly fu­els sus­pi­cion and un­cer­tain­ty.

In a state­ment over the week­end, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar threw her Gov­ern­ment’s full sup­port be­hind the de­ploy­ment of Unit­ed States mil­i­tary as­sets to the Caribbean, de­scrib­ing it as a nec­es­sary war against “ter­ror­ist drug car­tels.”

“The on­ly per­sons who should be wor­ried about the ac­tiv­i­ty of the US mil­i­tary are those en­gaged in, or en­abling crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. Law-abid­ing cit­i­zens have noth­ing to fear,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared in a state­ment is­sued Sat­ur­day.

She said her Gov­ern­ment had not con­sult­ed Cari­com on the is­sue and has no in­ten­tion of do­ing so.

“Each mem­ber state can speak for them­selves on this is­sue,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter stressed that Wash­ing­ton has nev­er sought per­mis­sion to use T&T’s ter­ri­to­ry for mil­i­tary ac­tion against Venezuela.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go has al­ways had good re­la­tions with the Venezue­lan peo­ple and that will con­tin­ue,” she said.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar drew a hard line, warn­ing that any ag­gres­sion by Cara­cas against Guyana would trig­ger a dif­fer­ent re­sponse.

“I want to make it very clear that if the Maduro regime launch­es any at­tack against the Guyanese peo­ple or in­vades Guyanese ter­ri­to­ry and a re­quest is made by the Amer­i­can Gov­ern­ment for ac­cess to Trinida­di­an ter­ri­to­ry to de­fend the peo­ple of Guyana, my Gov­ern­ment will un­flinch­ing­ly pro­vide them that ac­cess.”