Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

For­mer To­ba­go West MP Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis is ques­tion­ing why Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has not told Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­act­ly how he feels about the US mil­i­tary radar in­stalled at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port — and ex­act­ly where To­bag­o­ni­ans be­lieve she should put it.

Cud­joe-Lewis raised the is­sue while ad­dress­ing a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) meet­ing in Bethel on Sat­ur­day, ac­cus­ing the Chief Sec­re­tary of re­main­ing silent on the radar is­sue while To­ba­go faces po­ten­tial se­cu­ri­ty risks linked to its in­stal­la­tion.

She di­rect­ly chal­lenged Au­gus­tine’s po­si­tion, ar­gu­ing that his si­lence con­trasts sharply with his past po­lit­i­cal pos­ture.

“Why he can’t tell Kam­la ex­act­ly where to put the radar?” Cud­joe-Lewis asked. “Why he scared now?”

Cud­joe-Lewis said the Chief Sec­re­tary ap­pears un­will­ing to con­front the Prime Min­is­ter on the mat­ter, de­spite pre­vi­ous­ly hav­ing no dif­fi­cul­ty pub­licly crit­i­cis­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.

“Just months ago, they were call­ing Row­ley name and bark­ing at the PNM,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to Cud­joe-Lewis, the radar is­sue is not a mi­nor po­lit­i­cal dis­agree­ment but a se­ri­ous na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cern, par­tic­u­lar­ly for To­ba­go.

She warned that the in­stal­la­tion of for­eign mil­i­tary equip­ment places the is­land in a vul­ner­a­ble po­si­tion amid on­go­ing re­gion­al ten­sions.

“You don’t put a tar­get on To­ba­go and ex­pect us to stay qui­et,” she said.

Cud­joe-Lewis said To­ba­go should not be used for strate­gic mil­i­tary in­fra­struc­ture with­out clear, firm rep­re­sen­ta­tion from its po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship.

She said the Chief Sec­re­tary has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to speak di­rect­ly and force­ful­ly to the Prime Min­is­ter on be­half of To­bag­o­ni­ans, rather than avoid­ing the is­sue.

Her com­ments come amid in­creased po­lit­i­cal ten­sions ahead of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions on Jan­u­ary 12 – with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, gov­er­nance and To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my dom­i­nat­ing cam­paign plat­forms.

Cud­joe-Lewis said lead­er­ship re­quires con­sis­ten­cy and courage, par­tic­u­lar­ly when de­ci­sions have the po­ten­tial to af­fect the safe­ty and sta­bil­i­ty of the is­land.

She said To­bag­o­ni­ans de­serve trans­paren­cy and strong ad­vo­ca­cy, es­pe­cial­ly when de­ci­sions in­volve in­ter­na­tion­al mil­i­tary in­ter­ests and pos­si­ble long-term con­se­quences for the is­land.

“You don’t put a tar­get on To­ba­go and ex­pect us to stay qui­et.” Cud­joe-Lewis added, say­ing that the is­sue will re­main a fo­cal point in the cam­paign as vot­ers head to the polls.