Grena­da’s for­mer sen­ate pres­i­dent Chester Humphrey has cau­tioned that ap­prov­ing a US re­quest to in­stall radar equip­ment at the Mau­rice Bish­op In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port could be a “his­toric dis­as­ter”.

The warn­ing fol­lows con­fir­ma­tion from Grena­da’s Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs that the US has asked to tem­porar­i­ly set up the sys­tem amid ris­ing re­gion­al ten­sions tied to Amer­i­can counter-nar­cotics op­er­a­tions near Venezuela.

In an in­ter­view with Grena­da me­dia, Humphrey claimed the move threat­ens the Caribbean’s sta­tus as a zone of peace and ac­cused the US of us­ing visa re­stric­tions and sanc­tions to pres­sure re­gion­al gov­ern­ments in­to com­pli­ance.

He said, “This has noth­ing to do with any in­ter­dic­tion of drugs. The play­book is the same, and that’s what they’re do­ing. The whole world knows. So, let’s be clear—what Grena­da is be­ing in­vit­ed to do is to be a part­ner in the in­va­sion of a sov­er­eign ter­ri­to­ry. We will be mak­ing a grave mis­take if we set our­selves up to par­tic­i­pate in the in­va­sion of Venezuela.”

Re­fer­ring to re­cent US re­gion­al ac­tiv­i­ty, he added, “Most ob­servers are not be­liev­ing the drug in­ter­dic­tion sto­ry be­cause it’s a very thin ve­neer that the Unit­ed States is pre­sent­ing.”

Humphrey al­so crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s co­op­er­a­tion with Wash­ing­ton, say­ing, “She’s of­fered up Trinidad and To­ba­go at their dis­pos­al.” He went on to note that some peo­ple are ques­tion­ing her stance, adding, “Peo­ple are say­ing, oh, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar may end up be­ing the sur­vivor in all of this—is she a trai­tor to the cause of sov­er­eign­ty and Caribbean in­de­pen­dence, or is she the sur­vivor, the smart one in the room who is get­ting in­to bed with the Unit­ed States giv­en that coun­try’s pow­er?”

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials main­tain the radar pro­pos­al in­volves no mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions and is still un­der re­view.