Dr Bhoe Tewarie

The in­stal­la­tion of radar and sur­veil­lance equip­ment at the ANR Robin­son Air­port, by the US mil­i­tary, should not be cause for alarm. We al­ready have a very deep and wide scope of arrange­ments on strate­gic mat­ters with the Unit­ed States.

Any arrange­ments that are spe­cif­ic to Trinidad and To­ba­go fall with­in the scope of a wider Cari­com, Caribbean and Hemi­spher­ic frame­work which gen­er­al­ly in­volves bind­ing mu­tu­al­ly agreed com­mit­ments. These in­clude the Caribbean-Unit­ed States Frame­work for Se­cu­ri­ty Co­op­er­a­tion and the Caribbean Basin Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive to which SO­FA is con­nect­ed.

The G/ATOR radar in To­ba­go is a mil­i­tary grade, mul­ti- func­tion­al radar, which has in­tel­li­gence, sur­veil­lance and re­con­nais­sance ca­pa­bil­i­ties. It has a 100-mile range and a 360-de­gree sur­veil­lance ca­pa­bil­i­ty. It can de­tect air­borne threats from drones to cruise mis­siles. Any­thing on the sea can be de­tect­ed—so traf­fick­ers of drugs, guns, hu­mans, whether in boats or planes, can be de­tect­ed. It can pro­vide da­ta for air de­fence weapons to strike.

Clear­ly, this is an im­por­tant piece of equip­ment not just for To­ba­go, but for na­tion­al de­fence. The radar can trig­ger high­ly ad­vanced mil­i­tary func­tions, and can feed in­for­ma­tion to trig­ger an at­tack re­sponse. This is sig­nif­i­cant. But be­fore you press the pan­ic but­ton, ask your­self the ques­tion: of what use is sur­veil­lance equip­ment if you can­not re­spond to dan­ger com­ing at you? What is the point of sur­veil­lance if you can­not re­spond? The for­mi­da­ble ques­tion is who will trig­ger the at­tack in de­fence of T&T? And who will be re­spon­si­ble un­der law?

Our Prime Min­is­ter has giv­en as­sur­ances that the radar will not be used to launch any as­sault on Venezuela, and I be­lieve her peace­ful in­ten­tions. But this is a dif­fi­cult com­mit­ment to keep if your coun­try is not ful­ly in charge of in­fra­struc­ture, op­er­a­tions and process­es. The spe­cif­ic terms of op­er­a­tional con­trol have not been dis­closed by the Prime Min­is­ter nor the Min­is­ter of De­fence, on grounds of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. This has raised anx­i­ety.

The de­ci­sion to in­stall this equip­ment in To­ba­go with­out shar­ing in­for­ma­tion with the Chief Sec­re­tary was a bad one. It was a mis­take with re­gard to con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­pri­ety and good gov­er­nance, and it is al­so a po­lit­i­cal mis­cal­cu­la­tion in the con­text of pend­ing elec­tions.

This in­ci­dent has raised the ques­tion all over again, of how does the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment make de­ci­sions re­lat­ed to To­ba­go when the House of As­sem­bly has the man­date to gov­ern the is­land, even though the THA is fi­nanced by na­tion­al tax­pay­ers via Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment. The na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and the for­eign re­la­tions man­dates of the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, and how these are wield­ed for the com­pre­hen­sive pro­tec­tion and ben­e­fit of the na­tion state, with req­ui­site sen­si­tiv­i­ty to is­land au­ton­o­my, has resur­faced for scruti­ny.

Da­ta shar­ing be­tween T&T and the US and/or trans­mis­sion to the US, seems to be built in­to arrange­ments that are clas­si­fied. From the To­ba­go point of view, the ques­tion aris­es: how does the Chief Sec­re­tary fit in­to the in­for­ma­tion-shar­ing loop?

Since the full scope of the SO­FA agree­ment, mod­i­fied and ex­tend­ed un­til such time as a re­view is re­quest­ed, by the Dr Kei­th Row­ley gov­ern­ment in 2024 pre­vails; and since the de­tails of the agree­ment on the radar have not been shared by the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment, the de­tails of the da­ta and in­for­ma­tion arrange­ments, the role and scope of US mil­i­tary and the pow­er struc­ture on mat­ters re­lat­ed to the radar and its ca­pa­bil­i­ties re­main un­known. So, even a dis­cern­ing cit­i­zen is un­able to make an as­sess­ment of the ex­tent of the ero­sion of T&T sov­er­eign­ty.

What have we re­ceived or will we re­ceive for this loss of sov­er­eign­ty? We will have en­hanced da­ta and in­for­ma­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties through the sur­veil­lance tech­nol­o­gy, and cor­re­spond­ing mil­i­tary pro­tec­tion from the US. When our Prime Min­is­ter said that To­ba­go is more pro­tect­ed now than ever be­fore, she was speak­ing the truth. But the truth is too, that To­ba­go, by lo­ca­tion of the radar and, Trinidad and To­ba­go, sim­ply by its ge­o­graph­i­cal prox­im­i­ty to Venezuela, has be­come more vul­ner­a­ble in a sit­u­a­tion of po­ten­tial armed con­flict be­tween the US and Venezuela.

Mean­while, in the US, scruti­ny of al­leged drug boat killings is in­ten­si­fy­ing, op­po­si­tion to a land war in Venezuela is grow­ing and op­po­si­tion to Trump uni­lat­er­al­ism and ar­bi­trari­ness, both in the US and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, is in­creas­ing. The UK, ear­li­er on, pulled out of in­for­ma­tion shar­ing with the US on mat­ters re­lat­ed to cur­rent op­er­a­tions in the Caribbean.

Pos­ses­sion of radar equip­ment with a 100-mile reach, which can see deeply in­to neigh­bour­ing ter­ri­to­ry, makes the radar it­self a tar­get. While the reach is equal to that of weath­er sur­veil­lance equip­ment in­stalled in To­ba­go some time ago, its role is na­tion­al de­fence and mil­i­tary re­spon­sive­ness, if nec­es­sary, with the help of the US.

Be­yond pro­tec­tion and elim­i­na­tion of tar­iffs, T&T needs a bet­ter trade-off pack­age from the US. Sov­er­eign­ty loss­es, mil­i­tary ex­po­sure, pos­si­ble vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in in­ter­na­tion­al law, and the pause of both in­vestors and tourists as mil­i­tary con­fronta­tion takes cen­tre stage in this re­gion, re­quire the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion to step up high­er for T&T.