Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has made it clear that had the de­ci­sion rest­ed sole­ly with him, he would have re­ject­ed the in­stal­la­tion of the Unit­ed States-in­stalled mil­i­tary radar in To­ba­go and per­mis­sion for US mil­i­tary air­craft to use To­ba­go’s air­port.

Speak­ing on Thurs­day dur­ing a To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) meet­ing at the Buc­coo In­te­grat­ed Fa­cil­i­ty, Au­gus­tine spoke at length about his promise to bring au­ton­o­my to To­ba­go if re-elect­ed on Jan­u­ary 12.

Fol­low­ing his on-stage ad­dress, Guardian Me­dia asked the Chief Sec­re­tary if he had full au­ton­o­my over To­ba­go’s af­fairs, whether he would have re­ject­ed the mil­i­tary radar and de­nied US mil­i­tary air­craft ac­cess to the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

“Yes, I would have,” Au­gus­tine replied.

Asked why he would have said no, the TPP leader said, “Be­cause at the end of the day, gov­er­nance must be about what the peo­ple of To­ba­go want, and I’ve al­ways rep­re­sent­ed the views of To­ba­go.”

Asked if he was im­ply­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans do not want the radar, Au­gus­tine said, “I can’t say that for sure, we do not have any sci­en­tif­ic da­ta, but on the face of it, we have to op­er­ate from the frame­work where To­ba­go re­mains a place where To­bag­o­ni­ans make those de­ci­sions.”

Au­gus­tine, how­ev­er, re­it­er­at­ed that he does not feel that the pres­ence of the radar and the US mil­i­tary’s use of the air­port will neg­a­tive­ly im­pact tourism, which is a ma­jor rev­enue earn­er for the is­land.

There has been some con­fu­sion over the ca­pa­bil­i­ties of the AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR radar. The T&T Gov­ern­ment and the US South­ern Com­mand have con­sis­tent­ly stat­ed the radar is for block­ing il­le­gal drug trans­ac­tions. How­ev­er, a New York Times re­port point­ed out a sig­nif­i­cant tech­ni­cal con­tra­dic­tion. The ar­ti­cle claimed the radar is de­signed for air sur­veil­lance and de­fence and not for track­ing “go-fast” boats that are typ­i­cal­ly used by drug traf­fick­ers. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has since ques­tioned the ve­rac­i­ty of the ar­ti­cle and de­ferred all ad­di­tion­al ques­tions to the De­fence Min­is­ter, who has re­mained mum on the is­sue.

On De­cem­ber 16, dur­ing an­oth­er TPP pub­lic meet­ing, Au­gus­tine said he was giv­en a tour of the radar fa­cil­i­ty.

On Thurs­day night, Guardian Me­dia asked him if he was told what the re­al ca­pa­bil­i­ties of the mil­i­tary equip­ment are.

Au­gus­tine, how­ev­er, would on­ly say, “Please, please di­rect your ques­tions to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.”

The TPP is less than a month away from the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions, with the radar and US in­flu­ence on the is­land be­ing salient points at­tract­ing the in­ter­est of vot­ers.

Asked if the de­ci­sions of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment could put the TPP at a dis­ad­van­tage at the polls, Au­gus­tine said, “I am not view­ing any­thing in the light of THA elec­tions. The cen­tral gov­ern­ment, for the last 45 years of the THA, ex­is­tence of the mod­ern THA, has al­ways put the peo­ple of To­ba­go at a dis­ad­van­tage. I spoke tonight about some ex­am­ples of how we are at a dis­ad­van­tage and the things that To­ba­go tru­ly want, we don’t get, they don’t be­come pri­or­i­ties. Our pri­or­i­ties are al­most al­ways set at Port-of- Spain, and we are forced to fol­low.”

He added, “While I re­spect the Prime Min­is­ter’s abil­i­ty in law to make these de­ci­sions, and un­for­tu­nate­ly I don’t have a say in these de­ci­sions, I am say­ing that new leg­is­la­tion for au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go must in­clude a To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly for which there must be con­cur­rence among all of these mat­ters, in­clud­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions. I spoke about that two nights ago, I spoke about it in the past, I’ve said it in many vary­ing ways, and I don’t know how to say it again.”

Asked about the US Pres­i­dent’s re­cent an­nounce­ment of a “to­tal and com­plete block­ade” of all sanc­tioned oil tankers en­ter­ing or leav­ing Venezuela, Au­gus­tine said To­ba­go’s view on Pres­i­dent Trump’s pol­i­cy will be in­con­se­quen­tial.

He stressed that To­ba­go’s for­eign pol­i­cy is that it is mind­ing its busi­ness.

“Notwith­stand­ing not hav­ing the au­ton­o­my, we pride our­selves in stand­ing up for our­selves, be­ing dif­fer­ent if we have to be dif­fer­ent, and notwith­stand­ing the de­ci­sions of cen­tral gov­ern­ment, ba­si­cal­ly carv­ing our own course and mak­ing our own de­ci­sions.”