Sources in the De­fence Force say the pres­ence of US Naval ships in the Caribbean Sea was not dis­cussed dur­ing a meet­ing on Mon­day in­volv­ing se­nior mil­i­tary of­fi­cials. Sources, who asked not to be named, said the meet­ing was lim­it­ed to “do­mes­tic af­fairs” on­ly.

They said the meet­ing, which last­ed about three hours, took place at De­fence Force head­quar­ters in Ch­aguara­mas, where is­sues re­lat­ing to op­er­a­tions with­in T&T and oth­er ad­min­is­tra­tive mat­ters were dis­cussed.

The meet­ing was at­tend­ed by the De­fence Force com­mand group, which in­cludes the for­ma­tion com­man­ders of the Reg­i­ment, Coast Guard, and Air Guard.

“There wasn’t any men­tion of the mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions re­gard­ing the US.

“It dealt pri­mar­i­ly with do­mes­tic af­fairs and op­er­a­tions re­lat­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to the TT De­fence Force via email ask­ing whether the US had sought any as­sis­tance from lo­cal fa­cil­i­ties for re­fu­elling or over­all mil­i­tary sup­port, but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time.

When con­tact­ed, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and re­tired Brigadier Gen­er­al Ed­mund Dil­lon de­clined to com­ment on the mat­ter.

Yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty’s of­fi­cial Face­book page showed pic­tures of De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge vis­it­ing Camp La Ro­main and Camp Og­den, where he met with mem­bers of the Reg­i­ment.

It was the min­is­ter’s first pho­tographed pub­lic ap­pear­ance since al­leged death threats were made against him.

In their state­ment, the min­istry not­ed that the vis­it was part of the “gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued sup­port for the Armed Forces.”

The state­ment al­so em­pha­sised the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing lo­cal forces have “the re­sources, train­ing and in­fra­struc­ture need­ed to serve with ex­cel­lence.”

In April, lo­cal mil­i­tary forces, along with re­gion­al mil­i­taries and US mil­i­tary per­son­nel, took part in a joint train­ing ex­er­cise in Trinidad as part of Op­er­a­tion Tradewinds. Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, sol­diers, sailors, and air­men re­ceived land force train­ing, aquat­ic train­ing, marks­man­ship, and oth­er tac­ti­cal in­struc­tion.

The Tradewinds ex­er­cis­es are held an­nu­al­ly in the re­gion.

The US South­ern Com­mand (SOUTH­COM) is a joint mil­i­tary force based in Mi­a­mi, Flori­da, tasked with pro­tect­ing US mil­i­tary in­stal­la­tions and in­ter­ests in South Amer­i­ca, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, and the Caribbean.

Mil­i­tary sources have con­firmed that, among re­gion­al part­ners, a mem­ber of the T&T Coast Guard is as­signed to SOUTH­COM’s fa­cil­i­ty as a li­ai­son to as­sist with co-or­di­nat­ing ef­forts and in­tel­li­gence-shar­ing.

In April 2018, for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, claimed that there were “peo­ple” who en­cour­aged T&T to in­vade Venezuela, as he em­pha­sised the coun­try’s neu­tral­i­ty.

A day lat­er, then-com­man­der of SOUTH­COM, Ad­mi­ral Kurt Tidd, dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing com­mem­o­rat­ing the con­clu­sion of Op­er­a­tion Fused Re­sponse—a joint train­ing ex­er­cise be­tween the T&T De­fence Force and US mil­i­tary forces—de­clined to re­spond to Row­ley’s claims of in­va­sion.

Tidd not­ed that the mil­i­tary train­ing ex­er­cise had been planned long be­fore Dr Row­ley’s claims and was fo­cused on ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing ef­forts for lo­cal se­cu­ri­ty forces.

Months lat­er that year, in Au­gust, Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro sur­vived an as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempt at a mil­i­tary pa­rade when a drone car­ry­ing C-4 ex­plo­sives det­o­nat­ed near his lo­ca­tion.

Days lat­er, US Navy am­phibi­ous as­sault ves­sel the USS Gun­ston Hall vis­it­ed T&T as part of train­ing ex­er­cis­es and com­mu­ni­ty re­la­tions ac­tiv­i­ties.

When asked about the tim­ing of the Gun­ston Hall’s vis­it to T&T, for­mer charge d’af­faires of the US Em­bassy in Trinidad, John McIn­tyre, said the vis­it had been planned be­fore the as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempt on Maduro and stressed that the ves­sel and sailors were not in the re­gion to con­duct any sur­veil­lance on Venezuela.