Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), An­cil Den­nis, has ac­cused Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine of know­ing about the mil­i­tary radar in­stalled in To­ba­go be­fore it was made pub­lic.

In an in­ter­view fol­low­ing a com­mu­ni­ty con­ver­sa­tion event at Bar­code in Scar­bor­ough yes­ter­day, Den­nis said: “It’s a joke for them, the fact that a mil­i­tary radar has been es­tab­lished in To­ba­go be­hind our backs with­out any con­sul­ta­tion with the peo­ple of To­ba­go, with­out any con­sul­ta­tion with the Chief Sec­re­tary ac­cord­ing to him, and I’m say­ing ac­cord­ing to him be­cause my in­for­ma­tion tells me that he did in fact know about the radar be­ing in­stalled be­fore it was in­stalled, but stay tuned for that. “But to them it’s a joke, so plac­ing the lives and the liveli­hoods of the peo­ple of To­ba­go in grave dan­ger due to ir­re­spon­si­ble ac­tions on the part of this cur­rent Gov­ern­ment is a joke for Cer­ti­ca (Williams) or Far­ley Au­gus­tine and oth­er mem­bers of the TPP. Well, I want to say to the peo­ple of To­ba­go that just as how they be­lieve that this in­stal­la­tion of the radar is a joke, then we should con­sid­er any­thing that they say on the plat­form, in­clud­ing vot­ing for them for our next four years, as a big joke and we should sim­ply laugh in their faces, cyar, cyar, cyar, cyar (sic).”

He added that he would not al­low such de­ci­sions to go un­chal­lenged.

“What I will do dif­fer­ent­ly… I will not sit silent­ly and al­low a cen­tral gov­ern­ment to dis­re­spect the peo­ple of To­ba­go in that way,” he said.

Den­nis made the re­marks amid crit­i­cism of the radar in­stal­la­tion at ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, warn­ing that it could en­dan­ger the is­land’s se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty.

Speak­ing dur­ing the event, Den­nis said he in­tend­ed to “stand up like a man and speak on be­half of the peo­ple of To­ba­go,” as he high­light­ed the po­ten­tial risks of the radar amid ris­ing glob­al ten­sions.

“So, imag­ine we have, well every­body know about the radar now, ten­sions hap­pen­ing, two coun­tries ap­par­ent­ly on the verge of mil­i­tary con­flict. We have been say­ing that this re­gion should be a re­gion of peace,” he said.

Den­nis said the tourism in­dus­try had al­ready be­gun to feel the ef­fects, claim­ing that of­fi­cials with­in the sec­tor told him for­eign vis­i­tors had can­celled book­ings af­ter the radar in­stal­la­tion be­came pub­lic. He warned that any es­ca­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al con­flict could jeop­ar­dise To­ba­go’s main eco­nom­ic sec­tors, in­clud­ing tourism, agri­cul­ture, trade, and the off­shore en­er­gy in­dus­try.

He said his in­for­ma­tion sug­gest­ed that To­bag­o­ni­ans were awak­ened be­tween 3 and 4 am last week by the sound of a mil­i­tary air­craft land­ing at the air­port be­fore per­son­nel and equip­ment were of­floaded. He claimed two more air­craft ar­rived days lat­er, and the Prime Min­is­ter lat­er con­firmed the in­stal­la­tion, which he said was de­scribed pub­licly as a “Christ­mas gift” to res­i­dents in Bon Ac­cord and Crown Point.

Den­nis al­so crit­i­cised Au­gus­tine for what he de­scribed as a mut­ed re­sponse to the radar in­stal­la­tion.

“How come the Chief Sec­re­tary has noth­ing to say? All he has done is de­fend­ed the Prime Min­is­ter to tell us that the Prime Min­is­ter for­get to tell him and the fact that she sent two min­is­ters re­cent­ly to To­ba­go, then she should be for­giv­en. And even thank the Prime Min­is­ter for the dis­re­spect,” he said.

He added that Au­gus­tine would have re­act­ed dif­fer­ent­ly if for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had presided over such an in­stal­la­tion.

“But all of a sud­den, the Chief Sec­re­tary is qui­et, noth­ing to say,” he said.

Den­nis al­so re­ject­ed the ex­pla­na­tion of­fered by the To­ba­go East MP, who de­scribed the in­stal­la­tion as part of an air­port up­grade.

“The air­port has an ef­fec­tive­ly work­ing radar al­ready for civil­ian pur­pos­es. What has been in­stalled here is a mil­i­tary radar,” he said.

He added that the sys­tem be­ing erect­ed in To­ba­go was sim­i­lar to one re­ject­ed by the gov­ern­ment in Grena­da.

“As far as he is con­cerned, the Gov­ern­ment could take that de­ci­sion be­hind our backs, with­out in­form­ing us, with­out con­sul­ta­tion, and put the same radar that the peo­ple of Grena­da re­ject­ed right here in To­ba­go,” he said.

The com­ments fol­low last week’s dis­clo­sure by Au­gus­tine that he had for­mal­ly re­quest­ed full de­tails on the radar sys­tem. In a state­ment last Fri­day, the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary said Unit­ed States per­son­nel had al­ready be­gun work on a radar in­stal­la­tion in­tend­ed to “en­hance sur­veil­lance ca­pa­bil­i­ty,” but added that Au­gus­tine be­came aware of the de­vel­op­ment on­ly af­ter com­plet­ing a live in­ter­view the night be­fore. The re­lease said he learnt of the mat­ter “on­ly af­ter” the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced it.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Au­gus­tine re­gard­ing Den­nis’ ac­cu­sa­tion but no re­sponse was re­ceived up to press time.