Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is now re­ly­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter for the ex­pla­na­tion be­hind this week’s unan­nounced US mil­i­tary land­ing in To­ba­go—a day af­ter say­ing he knew noth­ing about it.

But he still main­tains he does not sup­port any for­eign in­stal­la­tion on the is­land. And his po­si­tion has now led to calls by the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil to unite.

The is­sue erupt­ed be­fore dawn on Tues­day when a US Air Force C-17A Globe­mas­ter III de­scend­ed in­to To­ba­go with­out any pub­lic no­tice. Res­i­dents in parts of To­ba­go West said they were jolt­ed awake by the sound of the jet roar­ing over­head. By the time Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port lat­er that morn­ing, the air­craft had al­ready de­part­ed.

Au­gus­tine, speak­ing af­ter a To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty Thanks­giv­ing event Wednes­day night, said he is now await­ing a full up­date from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“Some­time af­ter 8 pm, she tried call­ing … as soon as I get an up­date from her, then I’ll be able to say de­fin­i­tive­ly what and why they were here,” he said.

He al­so re­ject­ed re­ports that he had told the pub­lic the air­craft had on­ly re­fu­elled on the is­land.

“No, I didn’t say they were here for re­fu­elling,” Au­gus­tine said. “I said I learnt of them be­ing here just like every­one else, ei­ther through the me­dia and What­sApp mes­sages and on so­cial me­dia in gen­er­al, and I learnt, while try­ing to do some in­ves­ti­ga­tion, that they re­fu­elled while they were here.”

But Au­gus­tine was firm on what he would not sup­port.

“I do not sup­port any kind of in­stal­la­tion in To­ba­go that draws us in­to what­ev­er is hap­pen­ing be­tween the US and Venezuela,” he said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, on Wednes­day, af­ter the air­craft was spot­ted, had said its pres­ence was tied to ac­tiv­i­ty tak­ing place at the air­port.

“They are help­ing us with some­thing to do at the air­port,” she said, adding that US Marines were “train­ing with our peo­ple” and stress­ing that the vis­it was not linked to any re­gion­al mil­i­tary es­ca­la­tion.

Air­port work­ers, how­ev­er, said they were made to be­lieve C-17 de­liv­ered an un­der­ground tank need­ed to com­plete a gas line that was not in­stalled dur­ing the ter­mi­nal re­de­vel­op­ment.

The sit­u­a­tion in­ten­si­fied af­ter Guardian Me­dia dis­cov­ered a cam­ou­flaged mil­i­tary unit con­cealed be­hind ra­zor-wire and a tall perime­ter fenc­ing in­side a se­cured con­struc­tion zone at the air­port.

The equip­ment close­ly match­es the ex­ter­nal de­sign of the US Ma­rine Corps AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Ori­ent­ed Radar (G/ATOR), a mo­bile radar used for air sur­veil­lance, drone de­tec­tion, counter-fire track­ing and ground move­ment mon­i­tor­ing.

The con­cerns deep­ened overnight af­ter re­ports be­gan to cir­cu­late of a sec­ond US mil­i­tary air­craft—a Lock­heed Mar­tin C-130J Su­per Her­cules —de­tect­ed de­scend­ing in­to To­ba­go around mid­night. How­ev­er, this was not con­firmed by an of­fi­cial yes­ter­day.

To­bag­o­ni­ans in

the dark—Den­nis

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader Mick­ela Pan­day al­so ques­tioned the chang­ing ex­pla­na­tions.

In a so­cial me­dia post, she said it seems To­ba­go’s “road­way project” is get­ting “quite the VIP treat­ment” in the hemi­sphere.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day evening, Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the PNM, An­cil Den­nis, ac­cused both the Gov­ern­ment and the THA of keep­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans in the dark.

“The Gov­ern­ment, and I have to say as well, in con­junc­tion with the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, are ap­par­ent­ly en­gag­ing in very se­cret, shady ac­tiv­i­ties be­hind the backs of the To­bag­o­ni­ans,” he said.

He said Au­gus­tine’s new com­ments opened a door for pol­i­tics to be put aside and uni­ty to be­come the core.

“And he said some­thing that was very in­ter­est­ing, that he does not sup­port the es­tab­lish­ment of any mil­i­tary fa­cil­i­ty or equip­ment on this is­land. And I am say­ing that I sup­port the Chief Sec­re­tary if, in fact, he stands by that state­ment.”

Den­nis said he is even pre­pared to join Au­gus­tine pub­licly.

“To join us, my­self, the Chief Sec­re­tary … then I am pre­pared to join him so we can speak in a uni­fied way… we do not want such a fa­cil­i­ty in To­ba­go.”

Den­nis al­so ques­tioned why To­ba­go was cho­sen.

“As a To­bag­on­ian, I am ex­treme­ly con­cerned, and I be­lieve every sin­gle To­bag­on­ian should be con­cerned. This is un­prece­dent­ed,” he said.

Re­gion­al­ly, Grena­da’s Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell con­firmed this week that his gov­ern­ment is al­so con­sid­er­ing a US re­quest in­volv­ing tech­ni­cal radar as­sis­tance.

He said it is a tech­ni­cal mat­ter and re­quires a lot of tech­ni­cal peo­ple to pro­vide guid­ance on what it is the is­land is be­ing asked to ac­com­mo­date.

On Wednes­day, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic ap­proved the US us­ing re­strict­ed fa­cil­i­ties to help in its fight against il­lic­it drugs.