DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers yes­ter­day con­firmed that au­thor­i­ties have ob­tained the co­or­di­nates of re­cent Unit­ed States mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in the Caribbean, which ver­i­fy that the strikes oc­curred in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters—out­side T&T’s Ex­clu­sive Eco­nom­ic Zone (EEZ).

How­ev­er, he did not say whether the co­or­di­nates in­clude the lo­ca­tion of the Oc­to­ber 14 blast be­lieved to have killed two Trinida­di­ans—Chad “Char­po” Joseph and Rishi Sama­roo.

Speak­ing at the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s, Sobers stressed that law-abid­ing boat op­er­a­tors have “ab­solute­ly noth­ing to fear.”

“When the Gov­ern­ment says there is no ev­i­dence to sug­gest that these per­sons were killed by a strike pur­suant to mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion, we say that be­cause it is a fact,” he said. “There is no ev­i­dence to sug­gest that they were killed by a mil­i­tary strike.”

Sobers said in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent are on­go­ing and con­firmed that the strike oc­curred be­yond the coun­try’s na­tion­al wa­ters.

He al­so said he in­tends to per­son­al­ly con­tact the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to as­sist Sama­roo’s rel­a­tives, who re­port­ed dif­fi­cul­ty fil­ing a miss­ing per­son’s re­port at the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion.

The Oc­to­ber 14 in­ci­dent forms part of a wider US-led mar­itime op­er­a­tion tar­get­ing nar­cotics traf­fick­ing routes through Venezue­lan wa­ters.

Sobers re­it­er­at­ed that there is “no ev­i­dence” the two men were killed and warned the pub­lic and me­dia against spec­u­la­tion.

“When we say there is no ev­i­dence to sug­gest that these per­sons were killed by a strike... it is a fact,” he said, ac­cus­ing some me­dia out­lets of spread­ing “wild, spu­ri­ous, crazy al­le­ga­tions.”

“One such in­di­vid­ual asked a ques­tion teth­er­ing it to the USS Grave­ly. There is no ev­i­dence that the Grave­ly was in­volved in any strike,” Sobers said. “So when we put the ques­tions back to the me­dia—if you have ev­i­dence to sup­port the wild, spu­ri­ous, crazy al­le­ga­tions that you are mak­ing and ped­dling with­in the pub­lic do­main in an ir­re­spon­si­ble man­ner—then it is you who are sup­posed to give us the in­for­ma­tion.”

The min­is­ter al­so con­firmed that the gov­ern­ment has no in­for­ma­tion link­ing Joseph or Sama­roo to il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.

“No, the Gov­ern­ment had no in­for­ma­tion of the vic­tims of US strikes be­ing in pos­ses­sion of il­le­gal drugs, guns, or small arms,” he said.

Sobers ex­plained that the strikes were part of a US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion tak­ing place in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters.

“If the strikes oc­curred with­in na­tion­al wa­ters, then the US would have to share in­for­ma­tion with Trinidad and To­ba­go. These are not strikes that are oc­cur­ring with­in our ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters, nor are they strikes that are oc­cur­ring with­in our EEZ.”

Asked whether the Gov­ern­ment would seek ad­di­tion­al de­tails from Wash­ing­ton, Sobers said law-abid­ing fish­er­folk and plea­sure craft op­er­a­tors have “ab­solute­ly noth­ing to fear.”

He con­firmed the strikes took place in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters but said he would “think about” re­leas­ing the co­or­di­nates of the in­ci­dent be­lieved to have killed the two men.

Mean­while, Sobers reaf­firmed that TT&To’s cam­paign for a non-per­ma­nent seat on the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil re­mains on track.

“Cari­com would have giv­en its sup­port to the can­di­da­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go as a non-per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the UN­SC. We have been in con­tact with our UN Am­bas­sador, Am­bas­sador (Neil) Parsan. There’s noth­ing to sug­gest that the can­di­da­cy is in dan­ger.”