Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

A week of mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es fea­tur­ing sol­diers of the TT Reg­i­ment and the US Ma­rine Corps’ 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit (MEU) be­gan yes­ter­day, but with no vis­i­ble ac­tiv­i­ty at Teteron Bar­racks, Ch­aguara­mas.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar took to X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) to wel­come the Unit­ed States Ma­rine Corps 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit “to our shores” and con­firmed the mil­i­tary drills start­ed yes­ter­day and will con­tin­ue through No­vem­ber 21.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the joint mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es are cru­cial in this coun­try’s fight against crime and in en­sur­ing the pre­pared­ness of the T&T De­fence Force.

“To win the fight against or­gan­ised crime, we must strength­en and mod­ernise our crime-fight­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ty. These joint ex­er­cis­es with the Unit­ed States are a crit­i­cal step in en­hanc­ing the TTDF’s readi­ness, in­tel­li­gence ca­pa­bil­i­ty, and op­er­a­tional strength.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that while the US Marines are in T&T, the ex­act num­ber and lo­ca­tions are un­clear due to height­ened se­cre­cy and se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols as part of the ex­er­cis­es.

The ar­rival of the MEU in this coun­try yes­ter­day co­in­cid­ed with news that the US mil­i­tary con­duct­ed its 21st strike on an­oth­er al­leged drug-smug­gling boat. This strike killed three peo­ple. The US South­ern Com­mand made the an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day. The strike, which oc­curred on Sat­ur­day, took place in the East­ern Pa­cif­ic. US South­ern Com­mand (SOUTH­COM) said the ves­sel was car­ry­ing nar­cotics and tran­sit­ing along a known drug-traf­fick­ing route.

Al­so yes­ter­day, US SOUTH­COM re­vealed the USS Ger­ald R Ford, the largest air­craft car­ri­er, was in the Caribbean Sea and is ex­pect­ed to join ad­di­tion­al mil­i­tary as­sets, in­clud­ing the Iwo Ji­ma Am­phibi­ous Ready Group, as part of Joint Task Force South­ern Spear, which aims to dis­man­tle the traf­fick­ing of il­le­gal drugs to the US and “neigh­bours of the US in the West­ern Hemi­sphere.”

In her post yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so not­ed the im­pact of nar­co-traf­fick­ing on T&T from main­land South Amer­i­ca, par­tic­u­lar­ly in terms of mur­ders and vi­o­lent crimes com­mit­ted di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly by these net­works.

“For too long, our cit­i­zens, from the el­der­ly to our youth, and even in­no­cent ba­bies, have been slaugh­tered mer­ci­less­ly by brazen crim­i­nals who prof­it from their con­nec­tions to car­tels and nar­co-ter­ror­ists.

“Gang vi­o­lence has erupt­ed in­to open law­less­ness on our streets, with high-pow­ered weapons un­leash­ing day­light ter­ror and claim­ing the lives of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

“I urge every cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go to re­mem­ber the in­no­cents who have been gunned down. Re­mem­ber their names. Re­mem­ber their faces. Their mem­o­ries must fu­el our na­tion­al re­solve.”

She added that in or­der to ef­fec­tive­ly com­bat or­gan­ised crime, a more mod­ernised ap­proach was need­ed, as these joint ex­er­cis­es were the first step in build­ing more re­silient de­fence ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

In her post, Per­sad-Bisses­sar at­tached a di­a­gram high­light­ing 13 dif­fer­ent ini­tia­tives be­tween the US mil­i­tary and T&T be­tween April 2024 and Oc­to­ber 2025.

On Fri­day, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers an­nounced that the 22nd MEU would be par­tic­i­pat­ing in a se­ries of mil­i­tary drills be­tween No­vem­ber 16 and 21.

The train­ing, he said, would take place in both ur­ban and rur­al en­vi­ron­ments across T&T and be­tween dusk and af­ter dark.

Sobers al­so con­firmed that US mil­i­tary he­li­copters would be used in the drills.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the out­skirts of the Ch­aguara­mas bar­racks on Sun­day; how­ev­er, there was no vis­i­ble ac­tiv­i­ty, with sen­tries on du­ty.

The TT De­fence Force did not pro­vide any in­for­ma­tion on the MEU ex­er­cis­es or what the first batch of ex­er­cis­es would en­tail.

How­ev­er, a TTDF source said the train­ing ex­er­cis­es would on­ly in­volve mem­bers of the Reg­i­ment, not­ing that the US Ma­rine Corps, while it op­er­ates un­der the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the US Navy, is a pri­mar­i­ly land-based fight­ing force.

The US South­ern Com­mand, on its of­fi­cial X ac­count, post­ed a pho­to of a US Ma­rine rap­pelling down a Black Hawk he­li­copter aboard the USS Iwo Ji­ma in the Caribbean.

“A US Ma­rine with 22nd_MEU con­ducts fast rope in­ser­tion drills aboard USS Iwo Ji­ma while un­der­way in the Caribbean Sea,” the cap­tion read.

Fast rope in­ser­tion is a mil­i­tary tac­tic used to al­low mil­i­tary per­son­nel to en­ter high-risk en­vi­ron­ments by de­scend­ing a thick rope from a hov­er­ing he­li­copter. This is done in ar­eas where land­ing is too dan­ger­ous.

The US South­ern Com­mand’s web­site, through a me­dia re­lease, con­firmed that the USS Ger­ald R Ford was in the Caribbean Sea.

In the me­dia re­lease, Com­man­der of Car­ri­er Strike Group 12 Rear Ad­mi­ral Paul Lanzilot­ta said the strike group was the most “ca­pa­ble, adapt­able and lethal” plat­form in the world and was pre­pared to de­fend the US against all threats.

“Our force will aug­ment ex­ist­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties to pro­tect our na­tion’s se­cu­ri­ty and pros­per­i­ty against nar­co-ter­ror­ism in the West­ern Hemi­sphere.”

The USS Ger­ald R Ford, ac­cord­ing to the me­dia re­lease, is staffed by 4,000 sailors and dozens of tac­ti­cal mil­i­tary air­craft, which can be de­ployed day or night.