Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Ac­tiv­i­ty has sharply in­creased at the radar in­stal­la­tion site at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, with new im­ages show­ing an ex­pan­sion of equip­ment and on-site op­er­a­tions over the past five weeks.

Aer­i­al pho­tographs, ob­tained from a source yes­ter­day, showed the once large­ly cleared com­pound now dense­ly packed with ve­hi­cles, con­tain­ers, and what looked like cov­ered equip­ment, all with­in a ful­ly en­closed, black-screened perime­ter.

An ear­li­er im­age from No­vem­ber 29 showed the fenced area with lim­it­ed ma­chin­ery and few­er ve­hi­cles, with much of the ground space ex­posed and min­i­mal ac­tiv­i­ty vis­i­ble.

In con­trast, the lat­est im­age re­vealed mul­ti­ple large trucks, con­tain­er units, and equip­ment crates spread across the com­pound.

Sev­er­al ar­eas were cov­ered with tar­pau­lins, and tem­po­rary struc­tures ap­pear to have been erect­ed in­side the site. Small­er ve­hi­cles were parked along the perime­ter, and at least one in­di­vid­ual was vis­i­ble in­side the en­clo­sure.

Fire and sup­port ve­hi­cles could be seen po­si­tioned near an en­trance, while ad­di­tion­al con­tain­ers were aligned along the fence line, in­di­cat­ing ex­pand­ed lo­gis­ti­cal op­er­a­tions since late No­vem­ber.

The com­pound re­mained sealed off from pub­lic view, with no iden­ti­fy­ing sig­nage vis­i­ble to in­di­cate who is op­er­at­ing the site or the pur­pose of the equip­ment now in place.

While the radar in­stal­la­tion it­self was not vis­i­ble in the im­ages, it was still seen spin­ning up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area, res­i­dents did not want to speak. The area was qui­et, and there was no vis­i­ble ac­tiv­i­ty along the radar’s site pa­ra­me­ter fence.

The in­creased ac­tiv­i­ty fol­lowed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments that Unit­ed States Marines were in To­ba­go as­sist­ing with radar sur­veil­lance and in­tel­li­gence op­er­a­tions aimed at de­tect­ing nar­co-traf­fick­ers at sea.

Her com­ments came amid pub­lic scruti­ny af­ter a Unit­ed States Air Force C-17A Globe­mas­ter III land­ed at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in late No­vem­ber.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine had said that he vis­it­ed the site twice in the past and saw noth­ing to raise an alarm. But, dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing, he told sup­port­ers his con­cern sur­round­ed the use of the da­ta, not the radar’s pres­ence.

Mean­while, Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, An­cil Den­nis, had called for the radar’s re­moval.