Akash Sama­roo

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says he does not sup­port “out­siders” mak­ing de­ci­sions for To­ba­go and be­lieves the is­land must have a greater say in mat­ters that af­fect it. He has made it clear that he wants a seat on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and has pledged that the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) will push for To­ba­go to have a voice on na­tion­al de­fence and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions if re-elect­ed on Jan­u­ary 12.

Speak­ing in Scar­bor­ough last evening at a TPP ral­ly where he not on­ly un­veiled his full slate of can­di­dates but al­so an­nounced the elec­tion date, Au­gus­tine told the crowd, “Make no mis­take, I be­lieve that the Chief Sec­re­tary should be part and par­cel of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. That's where the con­ver­sa­tion should go, and that is a mat­ter for the cab­i­net to ad­dress. That's not even a mat­ter of law. That's a cab­i­net pol­i­cy to be ad­dressed. Fur­ther­more, I be­lieve that for any na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions is­sue for which To­ba­go is a di­rect part of the arrange­ment, we should know.”

Au­gus­tine was ini­tial­ly left out of the loop when the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary in­stalled a radar at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. The Prime Min­is­ter has stat­ed that the radar was re­quest­ed as a tem­po­rary mea­sure to re­place an ex­ist­ing in­ef­fi­cient sys­tem and is in­tend­ed for re­al-time mon­i­tor­ing and sur­veil­lance of air and sea ter­ri­to­ry to com­bat drug traf­fick­ing, arms smug­gling, and hu­man traf­fick­ing. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Chief Sec­re­tary was in­ten­tion­al­ly not in­formed be­cause he is not a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. But af­ter re­quest­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion from the cab­i­net, Au­gus­tine had a meet­ing with the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and De­fence Min­is­ter.

Ad­dress­ing his sup­port­ers last evening, Au­gus­tine ad­mit­ted he is not com­fort­able with the cur­rent arrange­ment as it per­tains to To­ba­go be­ing left out of dis­cus­sions as it per­tains to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions.

“I don't like out­siders in the space try­ing to con­trol the space from wher­ev­er they are. That is the ethos of every To­bag­on­ian. But the re­al­i­ty of the glob­al world that we live in is that part­ner­ships will be formed. And un­til To­ba­go and To­bag­o­ni­ans fight and en­sure that we have a say when it comes to in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions, then we will con­tin­ue to have a sit­u­a­tion where some­body could sit some­where else and make a de­ci­sion for us,” Au­gus­tine said.

He added, “The so­lu­tion is to change the law. And there is no bet­ter per­son to change the law, no bet­ter par­ty to change the law, no bet­ter group of in­di­vid­u­als to change the law than the To­ba­go Peo­ple's Par­ty. That is what this elec­tion is about.”

The TPP leader again sought to un­der­score that To­ba­go will not in­volve it­self in any po­ten­tial war be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela.

“I want to as­sure you that To­ba­go is not sup­port­ing war any­way. We are not in­volved in war any­way. And that we are go­ing to en­sure that To­ba­go is not a launch­ing pad to fight any­body else any­way. To­ba­go's in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions that we're just min­ing our own busi­ness in par­adise and en­joy­ing the peace and land, the 116 square miles that God has giv­en to us.”