Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment has blocked ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion about re­port­ed Unit­ed States mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go, re­fus­ing to re­lease avi­a­tion records and in­vok­ing sweep­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­emp­tions, even as in­ter­na­tion­al re­ports, pub­lic avi­a­tion da­ta and the Gov­ern­ment’s own past ad­mis­sions point to US mil­i­tary move­ment through this coun­try.

Guardian Me­dia sub­mit­ted a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) re­quest to the Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion, ask­ing for Air Traf­fic Con­trol (ATC) tran­scripts, flight logs and com­mu­ni­ca­tion records re­fer­ring to for­eign mil­i­tary air­craft op­er­at­ing in T&T air­space from Oc­to­ber 2025 to present.

The re­quest al­so sought records of ap­provals or re­quests by the Unit­ed States or any oth­er for­eign mil­i­tary to use lo­cal air­space, air­ports or fa­cil­i­ties.

In a de­tailed re­sponse dat­ed Jan­u­ary 9, the Min­istry de­nied ac­cess to every cat­e­go­ry of re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion.

It said the doc­u­ments were ex­empt un­der Sec­tions 25 and 26 of the FOIA, ar­gu­ing that dis­clo­sure “is like­ly to prej­u­dice the de­fence of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and is al­so like­ly to bring harm to its se­cu­ri­ty and mil­i­tary in­tel­li­gence.”

The Min­istry fur­ther claimed that shar­ing the in­for­ma­tion “will un­jus­ti­fi­ably dis­close in­for­ma­tion com­mu­ni­cat­ed in con­fi­dence by or on be­half of a for­eign gov­ern­ment or in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion and cause dam­age to in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions.”

The Min­istry said it weighed the po­ten­tial pub­lic ben­e­fit of re­leas­ing the doc­u­ments, in­clud­ing ful­fill­ing the ap­pli­cant’s right to ac­cess in­for­ma­tion held by the State, up­hold­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy in the pub­lic ser­vice, and keep­ing the pub­lic ful­ly in­formed of any for­eign mil­i­tary air­craft in T&T.

The Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary con­firmed that the mat­ter had been es­ca­lat­ed to the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, where Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is­sued a for­mal Cer­tifi­cate of Ex­emp­tion un­der Sec­tion 25(3) of the FOIA. That cer­tifi­cate de­clares ATC tran­scripts, flight com­mu­ni­ca­tions and records of for­eign mil­i­tary air­craft ap­provals as se­cu­ri­ty-sen­si­tive and con­clu­sive­ly ex­empt from dis­clo­sure.

It al­so in­structs the Trinidad and To­ba­go Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty to re­port to the Min­is­ter on how that ex­emp­tion is ap­plied go­ing for­ward.

Cru­cial­ly, the Min­istry did not de­ny that records ex­ist. In­stead, it ac­knowl­edged their ex­is­tence while re­fus­ing to re­lease them.

It re­ject­ed a re­quest for even par­tial dis­clo­sure, claim­ing that redac­tions or sum­maries would still risk re­veal­ing “op­er­a­tional pat­terns, ca­pa­bil­i­ties or arrange­ments” in­volv­ing for­eign mil­i­taries.

No record of re­quests says De­fence Min­istry

This stands in con­trast to the po­si­tion tak­en by the Min­istry of De­fence. In a sep­a­rate FOIA re­quest, the De­fence Min­istry claimed that af­ter “thor­ough and dili­gent search­es,” it found no records of for­eign mil­i­tary re­quests to use T&T’s air­space or mar­itime zones, no di­rec­tives or mo­bil­i­sa­tion in­struc­tions for lo­cal forces sup­port­ing for­eign mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions, and no cor­re­spon­dence or notes on such mat­ters.

It said there were sim­ply no doc­u­ments in its pos­ses­sion.

Those two of­fi­cial po­si­tions now sit side-by-side: one Min­istry con­firm­ing sen­si­tive records ex­ist and must be pro­tect­ed, and an­oth­er Min­istry for­mal­ly de­clar­ing that it has none at all.

The ar­gu­ment be­ing made is that if re­quests were made, they did not go through the Min­istry of De­fence.

That con­tra­dic­tion is even more strik­ing giv­en the Gov­ern­ment’s own pub­lic ad­mis­sion in De­cem­ber 2025.

In a me­dia re­lease, the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs con­firmed that T&T had grant­ed ap­provals for Unit­ed States mil­i­tary air­craft to use lo­cal air­ports “in keep­ing with es­tab­lished bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion.”

The re­lease said the US move­ments were “lo­gis­ti­cal in na­ture,” linked to sup­ply re­plen­ish­ment and per­son­nel ro­ta­tion.

This se­cre­cy con­tro­ver­sy un­folds against a tense geopo­lit­i­cal back­drop, as T&T’s align­ment with Wash­ing­ton over Venezuela has in­ten­si­fied, cul­mi­nat­ing in the seizure of Nicolás Maduro.

In Oc­to­ber 2025, the New York Times re­port­ed that mul­ti­ple Unit­ed States mil­i­tary drones ap­peared to have flown above and around Trinidad and To­ba­go, some with­in miles of the Venezue­lan coast and at least one di­rect­ly above this coun­try. Those find­ings were based on avi­a­tion mon­i­tor­ing and air traf­fic da­ta.

Pub­lic plat­forms such as LiveATC.net al­low any­one to lis­ten to avi­a­tion com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

The Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse con­firms such in­for­ma­tion ex­ists, but now re­fus­es to make it pub­lic.

Mean­while, this news­room has al­so writ­ten to the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs re­quest­ing records of diplo­mat­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tions re­lat­ing to for­eign mil­i­tary ac­cess to T&T’s air­space and wa­ters.

That re­quest seeks diplo­mat­ic re­quests, in­ter­nal cor­re­spon­dence and brief­ing notes re­gard­ing for­eign mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty. A re­sponse is still pend­ing.

On No­vem­ber 26, a US Air Force C-17A Globe­mas­ter III de­scend­ed in­to To­ba­go with­out any pub­lic no­tice.

Res­i­dents across parts of To­ba­go West said they were jolt­ed awake by the roar of the mil­i­tary trans­port jet.

In­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion re­turned to T&T’s skies when The New York Times re­port­ed on De­cem­ber 13 that air­craft op­er­at­ing in and around Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing GPS dis­rup­tions linked to es­ca­lat­ing US-Venezuela mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty. The Times re­port­ed that pi­lots from Caribbean Air­lines and Co­pa Air­lines alert­ed lo­cal air traf­fic con­trollers that their nav­i­ga­tion sys­tems were be­ing jammed, forc­ing con­trollers to guide air­craft us­ing radar.

Un­der the FOIA, Guardian Me­dia has the right to chal­lenge both the re­fusal by the Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion and the De­fence Min­istry’s claim that no records ex­ist.

The Min­istry ac­knowl­edged our right to ap­ply to the High Court for ju­di­cial re­view with­in 90 days, while the Min­istry of De­fence in­di­cat­ed that we may al­so com­plain to the Om­buds­man with­in 21 days.

Those op­tions are ac­tive­ly un­der con­sid­er­a­tion.