JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says the pres­ence of US war­ships and marines in this coun­try’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters and the wider re­gion has stopped gun and il­le­gal drug traf­fick­ers in their tracks — some­thing he says he is grate­ful for.

“The pres­ence of the Unit­ed States in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters con­tin­ues to ben­e­fit the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­cause now per­sons are hes­i­tat­ing. There is great hes­i­ta­tion in per­sons bring­ing in guns, il­le­gal drugs and per­form­ing this act of hu­man traf­fick­ing. That much I can tell you. I con­tin­ue to show­er praise on them. Our bor­ders were very porous over the years, and we have some friends or part­ners with us, that is as­sist­ing with that,” he said yes­ter­day out­side the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre in Aripo.

His praise for the US fol­lowed sim­i­lar com­men­da­tion from both the Prime Min­is­ter and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, who cred­it­ed US mil­i­tary ac­tion against sus­pect­ed nar­co-traf­fick­ers in the re­gion with a de­crease in the traf­fick­ing of il­le­gal guns and drugs, as well as a re­duc­tion in se­ri­ous crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The min­is­ter’s com­ments came af­ter two war­ships were spot­ted in the Gulf of Paria on Tues­day, with­in this coun­try’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters.

Yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed the pres­ence of the war­ships, ex­plain­ing that it was part of on­go­ing train­ing ex­er­cis­es be­tween the US and the De­fence Force. The US Ma­rine Corps’ 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit (MEU) and the T&T De­fence Force be­gan train­ing on Mon­day, which is ex­pect­ed to con­clude on Fri­day.

In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “They are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the on­go­ing mil­i­tary train­ing ex­er­cis­es with the TTDF. Dur­ing the ex­er­cis­es, ves­sels and air­craft will en­ter and ex­it our ter­ri­to­ry at dif­fer­ent times over the days. This is due to the dif­fer­ent types of train­ing at par­tic­u­lar times and the need for spe­cif­ic re­sources and equip­ment to sup­port the ac­tiv­i­ties. There are cur­rent­ly 250 marines from 22 MEU in the coun­try train­ing our TTDF at Cu­mu­to, Teteron, and Omega. They are sched­uled to move back to the ships on Fri­day.”

While the Prime Min­is­ter clar­i­fied the pur­pose of the ships and air­craft, Alexan­der had ear­li­er ad­mit­ted he was un­aware of any US ves­sels in the coun­try’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters de­spite his praise for their pres­ence.

“I have seen no ships. No­body has sent any ship to me. So, the on­ly way I can an­swer that is, I have no idea if there is a ship there. You see if I saw a ship there, and you see me present, then you can ask me about the ship. I don’t know, I have no an­swers for that at this time be­cause I know I haven’t seen any ship.”

Asked about the min­is­ter’s ap­par­ent un­aware­ness of the ves­sels, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­fend­ed him, say­ing: “Roger is a dis­ci­plined min­is­ter who fol­lows the chain of com­mand. I ap­pre­ci­ate that.”

Mean­while, Alexan­der dis­missed re­ports sug­gest­ing the US was car­ry­ing out ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings. He said those killed are deemed ter­ror­ists, and the rule of law may not ap­ply to them. He al­so re­ject­ed the no­tion that sup­port for the US equates to sup­port for ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings.

“Peo­ple could say many things. Peo­ple could say I love them, and I don’t. Peo­ple could say I miss them, and I don’t. What I’m sure about is this: if you un­der­stand how, when a coun­try views a sit­u­a­tion as a ter­ror­ist, what is re­quired, then many of these ques­tions you wouldn’t ask.”

Since 2 Sep­tem­ber, the US has killed 83 peo­ple in 21 strikes against al­leged nar­co-traf­fick­ers in the Pa­cif­ic and Caribbean wa­ters.