Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers says the US Ma­rine Corps 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit (MEU) will be com­ing to this coun­try to take part in mil­i­tary train­ing ex­er­cis­es from No­vem­ber 16 to 21 with the lo­cal De­fence Force.

His an­nounce­ment came yes­ter­day, one day af­ter At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie told the UK’s Fi­nan­cial Times that the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary is ex­pect­ed to in­ten­si­fy ex­er­cis­es in T&T.

Je­re­mie made the com­ment dur­ing an in­ter­view with the pub­li­ca­tion. In the ar­ti­cle, he is quot­ed as say­ing that the US 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit would in­ten­si­fy ex­er­cis­es “in the com­ing days.”

The MEU pre­vi­ous­ly came to this coun­try along with the USS Grave­ly, a war­ship that was docked at the Port of Port-of-Spain from Oc­to­ber 26 to 31. The Gov­ern­ment said the pur­pose of that vis­it was joint mil­i­tary train­ing with the De­fence Force.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al al­so told the Fi­nan­cial Times, “We are en­gaged with our friends in the north in a se­ries of ex­er­cis­es.”

Yes­ter­day, Sobers firm­ly dis­missed spec­u­la­tion that the up­com­ing joint train­ing ex­er­cis­es would lead to war. Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at his min­istry’s St Clair of­fice, he gave fur­ther de­tails of the US troops’ vis­it, read­ing from a me­dia re­lease and ex­plain­ing that the train­ing formed part of the Gov­ern­ment’s strat­e­gy to en­sure the De­fence Force was “op­ti­mal­ly trained and equipped” to ad­dress gun crimes and gang vi­o­lence.

Sobers said the ex­er­cis­es would be staged across T&T in both ur­ban and rur­al en­vi­ron­ments, with ac­tiv­i­ties tak­ing place dur­ing dusk and af­ter dark, and with some op­er­a­tions in­volv­ing US mil­i­tary he­li­copters.

Ac­cord­ing to a lat­er state­ment is­sued by the min­istry, “The fo­cus of the up­com­ing ex­er­cise is mil­i­tary-to-mil­i­tary en­gage­ment, al­low­ing per­son­nel from both coun­tries to be­come fa­mil­iar with each oth­er’s equip­ment, tac­tics and tech­niques. The ex­er­cise will chal­lenge par­tic­i­pants, of­fer­ing them op­por­tu­ni­ties to ex­pand their ex­per­tise and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment. Train­ing will take place across Trinidad and To­ba­go in both ur­ban and rur­al en­vi­ron­ments, with op­er­a­tions sched­uled dur­ing dusk and af­ter dark. Sev­er­al of these ex­er­cis­es will in­cor­po­rate 22nd MEU he­li­copters. This col­lab­o­ra­tion is one of the many side-by-side ex­er­cis­es that the US mil­i­tary has long con­duct­ed in part­ner­ship with the TTDF. It demon­strates the strong part­ner­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States based on mu­tu­al re­spect and is part of the coun­try’s long, fruit­ful, on­go­ing part­ner­ship with US­SOUTH­COM.”

The US Em­bassy al­so clar­i­fied the pur­pose of the MEU’s vis­it, say­ing that in ad­di­tion to train­ing, the unit “will al­so be en­gag­ing in out­reach ac­tiv­i­ties with var­i­ous schools in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Sobers’ an­nounce­ment came two days af­ter the world’s largest air­craft car­ri­er, the USS Ger­ald R Ford, ar­rived in Caribbean wa­ters. When asked whether the Gov­ern­ment would sup­port a war if one un­fold­ed be­tween the US and Venezuela, Sobers main­tained that the ques­tion was spec­u­la­tive.

“If you ask me some­thing fac­tu­al­ly, I would an­swer. If you ask me some­thing based up­on con­jec­ture, I’ve nev­er done it as a lawyer, and I would nev­er do it as a min­is­ter.”

When pressed on what the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach would be if such a con­flict arose, Sobers said it would make the “best pos­si­ble de­ci­sion.”

“If it (war) hap­pens, trust that your Gov­ern­ment will stand with you and we will make the best pos­si­ble de­ci­sion in the in­ter­est of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. That is what I can say.”

Sobers al­so re­ject­ed claims cir­cu­lat­ing on­line that the drills were a pre­cur­sor to a large-scale mil­i­tary con­flict that might in­volve the T&T De­fence Force, say­ing there was “no in­for­ma­tion to sug­gest that.”

How­ev­er, on Thurs­day, US Sec­re­tary of War Pe­te Hegseth an­nounced the be­gin­ning of Op­er­a­tion South­ern Spear, a mil­i­tary cam­paign led by Joint Task Force South­ern Spear and the US South­ern Com­mand aimed at dis­rupt­ing nar­co-traf­fick­ing.

“This mis­sion de­fends our home­land, re­moves nar­co-ter­ror­ists from our hemi­sphere and se­cures our home­land from the drugs that are killing our peo­ple. The west­ern hemi­sphere is Amer­i­ca’s neigh­bour­hood - and we will pro­tect it.”

Sobers al­so re­spond­ed to con­cerns about the pres­ence of US mil­i­tary as­sets in the re­gion, not­ing that T&T’s high lev­els of gun vi­o­lence and mur­ders over the years re­quired ur­gent at­ten­tion. Be­cause of its prox­im­i­ty to main­land South Amer­i­ca, he said T&T would be dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ed by the in­flux of drugs, guns and peo­ple.

Re­fer­ring to the use of as­sault ri­fles by crim­i­nals, Sobers ar­gued that fa­tal­i­ties and vi­o­lence in­volv­ing high-pow­ered weapons were hap­pen­ing well be­fore US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions be­gan ear­li­er this year. He de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued sup­port of US mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es.

“Peo­ple have been go­ing around this coun­try in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly shoot­ing at peo­ple with AK-47s and AR-15s, which are weapons of war, pri­or to what is tak­ing place now. I can’t re­call the last time that I heard or saw some­body spray­ing down a car, or go­ing in­to a neigh­bour­hood and do­ing a dri­ve-by shoot­ing and killing six peo­ple at the same time or killing peo­ple in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly. These things are not oc­cur­ring any­more, so if what we’re do­ing is hav­ing a tan­gi­ble and pos­i­tive ef­fect to get rid of that prob­lem, then thank God by all means that we’re do­ing what we’re do­ing.”

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions about the tim­ing of the joint train­ing, es­pe­cial­ly since the ma­jor Tradewinds Ex­er­cise was held be­tween April 26 and May 8, Sobers said, “Every time we get help from a for­eign su­per­pow­er, it should be con­sid­ered some­thing spe­cial. We have to build that foun­da­tion, and over the last cou­ple of months, with re­spect to the TTDF work­ing along­side the US.”

‘Op­tics not right’

How­ev­er, when con­tact­ed for com­ment, Ret’d Coast Guard Lt Cm­dr Nor­man Din­di­al said he was not con­vinced that US Marines in T&T would be lim­it­ed ex­clu­sive­ly to train­ing ex­er­cis­es. He re­ferred to on­go­ing US mil­i­tary strikes and naval as­sets in the south­ern Caribbean.

Din­di­al, the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance’s in­ter­im po­lit­i­cal leader and de­feat­ed can­di­date for Ch­agua­nas East in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, said that giv­en the re­lat­ed mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in the re­gion, it was too sus­pi­cious to dis­miss the ex­er­cis­es as rou­tine.

“The op­tics are not right at all, com­bat train­ing at a time when there is height­ened ten­sion be­tween the US and Venezuela and a mil­i­tary build-up in the Caribbean Sea. You’ve got to ask your­selves, what is our mil­i­tary get­ting our­selves in­volved in?”

Din­di­al, who has worked at the Na­tion­al Radar Cen­tre, the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Com­mand Cen­tre and over­seas in Mo­gadishu, So­ma­lia as part of the UN’s ef­forts to com­bat ter­ror­ism and pira­cy, said the MEU was an elite fight­ing force and it was rea­son­able to ques­tion whether their role in T&T was strict­ly for train­ing.

Re­fer­ring to the an­nounce­ment of Op­er­a­tion South­ern Spear, Din­di­al said con­fir­ma­tion of a US mil­i­tary pres­ence on­ly added to the un­ease.

“This is a self-sus­tained, high­ly-trained, for­ward-de­ployed, rapid-re­sponse force with ground and air com­bat ca­pa­bil­i­ties, and it’s nor­mal­ly used to in­tro­duce a fol­low-on force while sup­port­ing a mis­sion. This is more trou­bling when the US Sec­re­tary of War posts on X that he’s an­nounc­ing Op­er­a­tion South­ern Spear.”