DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­port­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion in a Unit­ed States-led re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tive has di­vid­ed se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts, with some de­scrib­ing it as an im­por­tant step in tack­ling transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime while oth­ers warn it could ex­pose the coun­try to new le­gal, diplo­mat­ic and geopo­lit­i­cal risks.

The dif­fer­ing as­sess­ments fol­low re­ports that the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) will par­tic­i­pate in the Joint Task Force West­ern Hemi­sphere (JTF-WHEM), a US-led Shield of the Amer­i­c­as ini­tia­tive in­volv­ing the 18-mem­ber Amer­i­c­as Counter Car­tel Coali­tion (A3C).

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the Unit­ed States Em­bassy in T&T said the se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion re­flects a shared com­mit­ment to de­fend sov­er­eign­ty, strength­en re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and con­front nar­co-ter­ror­ist net­works.

Chargé d’Af­faires Philip Kern said, “Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains a vi­tal re­gion­al part­ner in con­fronting com­plex se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges that threat­en our shared sta­bil­i­ty. Through the Amer­i­c­as Counter Car­tel Coali­tion and SOUTH­COM’s new Joint Task Force West­ern Hemi­sphere, we are deep­en­ing our co­op­er­a­tion to dis­rupt crim­i­nal net­works, safe­guard crit­i­cal mar­itime routes, and en­sure a safer, more pros­per­ous Caribbean.”

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Mal­isa Nep­tune-Fi­garo said JTF-WHEM re­flects the re­al­i­ty that or­gan­ised crime op­er­ates across bor­ders and re­quires a co­or­di­nat­ed in­ter­na­tion­al re­sponse.

She said the mea­sure could al­so help re­duce T&T’s long­stand­ing use as a tran­sit point for in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works.

How­ev­er, Nep­tune-Fi­garo cau­tioned that re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion alone would not solve the coun­try’s or­gan­ised crime prob­lem.

“While this ini­tia­tive may im­prove in­ter­dic­tion op­er­a­tional ca­pac­i­ty, it should not be viewed as a stand­alone so­lu­tion. Or­gan­ised crime can be sus­tained by cor­rup­tion, al­so il­lic­it flows of fi­nan­cial il­le­gal­i­ties. You have to al­so look at lo­cal gang net­works and al­so the de­mand for these il­le­gal mar­kets,” she said.

She added, “So even though it may be a suc­cess, it has to be in­te­grat­ed with re­gion­al mil­i­tary and law en­force­ment co­op­er­a­tion; do­mes­tic polic­ing has to be in­clud­ed, fi­nan­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tions, but you al­so have to have ef­fec­tive pros­e­cu­tions, as well as an­ti-cor­rup­tion mea­sures in or­der for it to holis­ti­cal­ly work.”

For­mer di­rec­tor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, Pro­fes­sor An­tho­ny Bryan, al­so wel­comed the ini­tia­tive.

“This is an ex­cel­lent de­vel­op­ment. It sig­nals a ma­jor step to­ward joint part­ner­ship for re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty,” he said.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Dau­rius Figueira, how­ev­er, ar­gued that the pro­pos­al rep­re­sents a fun­da­men­tal shift in T&T’s se­cu­ri­ty pos­ture, say­ing strate­gic plan­ning and op­er­a­tional com­mand would ul­ti­mate­ly re­main with the Unit­ed States.

“They will con­tin­ue to give di­rec­tion to hand out the strate­gic agen­da and to plan the for­ays and the as­saults and to do the man­pow­er plan­ning in­volv­ing non-US forces. So, that is Amer­i­ca’s show and we will just be pas­sive par­tic­i­pants. But that is to en­sure the com­pli­ance of all those who have signed the (Shields of the Amer­i­ca’s) agree­ment. So, to en­sure your par­tic­i­pa­tion as will­ing part­ners of the Amer­i­can agen­da, there must be now a ‘wash­ing of the spears’ by bring­ing in non-US forces.”

Figueira fur­ther warned that T&T could face le­gal and rep­u­ta­tion­al con­se­quences if fu­ture joint op­er­a­tions be­come the sub­ject of in­ter­na­tion­al lit­i­ga­tion.

Figueira said the arrange­ment would take T&T in­to un­fa­mil­iar ter­ri­to­ry not ex­pe­ri­enced since In­de­pen­dence in 1962. He not­ed that par­tic­i­pa­tion rais­es com­plex ques­tions un­der both in­ter­na­tion­al law and US do­mes­tic law, par­tic­u­lar­ly as le­gal chal­lenges re­lat­ing to US mil­i­tary strikes on sus­pect­ed drug-traf­fick­ing ves­sels un­der the Joint Task Force South­ern Spear (JTF­SS) are al­ready be­fore US courts.

He said those cas­es high­light unan­swered ques­tions about how fu­ture counter-traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tions in­volv­ing part­ner coun­tries will be con­duct­ed.

Figueira al­so ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the mat­ter, say­ing in­for­ma­tion about T&T’s re­port­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion emerged through US sources rather than lo­cal of­fi­cials.

“The re­al­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go is that the politi­cians are nev­er re­al­ly pressed be­cause we are so con­sumed with this race talk. That’s a great di­ver­sion. So, wher­ev­er you are un­der pres­sure, just sprin­kle some ever-lov­ing mag­ic pow­der of a race-bait­ing talk and then every­body goes down the road in the lavway,” he said.

Figueira said re­gard­less of how much in­for­ma­tion is dis­closed lo­cal­ly, fur­ther de­tails about the ini­tia­tive are like­ly to emerge through US in­sti­tu­tions.

His com­ments come af­ter US Sen­ate For­eign Re­la­tions Com­mit­tee Chair­man Sen­a­tor Jim Risch pub­licly thanked T&T for play­ing an “ac­tive role” in sup­port­ing the law en­force­ment op­er­a­tion that led to the cap­ture and ex­tra­di­tion of for­mer Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­nied the claim.

The Gov­ern­ment has not pub­licly out­lined the scope of T&T’s re­port­ed role in the ini­tia­tive or re­spond­ed in de­tail to ques­tions about its par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Mul­ti­ple at­tempts by Guardian Me­dia to ob­tain com­ment from De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, in­clud­ing on the ex­tent of the TTDF’s con­tri­bu­tion, were un­suc­cess­ful up to the time of pub­li­ca­tion.