Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porters

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of sea­side com­mu­ni­ties along Trinidad’s east coast say re­cent re­ports of US naval ves­sels op­er­at­ing near­by have sparked con­cern, with lo­cal fish­er­folk hop­ing that any mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty re­mains far from their homes.

Ac­cord­ing to Reuters and US of­fi­cials, at least 13 US war­ships, five sup­port ves­sels, and one nu­clear sub­ma­rine have been de­ployed to the Caribbean, with eight war­ships re­port­ed­ly still in the re­gion.

On Sun­day, four ves­sels—the USS Stock­dale, USS Iwo Ji­ma, USS Grave­ly, and USS Lake Erie—were re­port­ed in the area be­tween T&T and Bar­ba­dos, with at least one ap­pear­ing off Trinidad’s east coast.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, fish­er­folk from Saly­bia said they have not seen mil­i­tary ves­sels first­hand but are ex­er­cis­ing cau­tion re­gard­ing how far and how of­ten they ven­ture out to sea.

One fish­er­man, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said a po­lice pa­trol warned them yes­ter­day not to ven­ture be­yond their usu­al fish­ing zone.

“If a po­lice­man can come and tell you some­thing like that, you would try and heed it,” he said, adding that he had al­ready been cau­tious af­ter hear­ing sto­ries of en­coun­ters with mil­i­tary ves­sels.

He re­count­ed one un­ver­i­fied in­ci­dent where lo­cal fish­ers were re­port­ed­ly con­front­ed by US mil­i­tary per­son­nel near an off­shore oil rig about 29 miles off­shore.

“I heard a ru­mour that a mil­i­tary boat board­ed a boat off the rig, ran­sacked it, and left. They said this was US mil­i­tary,” he said.

The fish­er­man said the pres­ence of mil­i­tary ves­sels has led many in the com­mu­ni­ty to avoid ven­tur­ing far in­to open wa­ters.

“You go up and down the coast and I’m sure you’ll see a lot of boats on land with lit­tle to no ac­tiv­i­ty. Many on­ly go out from 6 am to 6 pm and avoid fish­ing af­ter dark. It’s too dan­ger­ous when vis­i­bil­i­ty is poor, and any­one could mis­take you for some­thing you’re not.”

De­spite these con­cerns, Roger Maraj, a life­long fish­er­man off To­co, said he had not seen any US ves­sels off the east coast and sug­gest­ed re­ports may have been con­fused with sight­ings else­where around Trinidad.

“Life has con­tin­ued as nor­mal for sea­side com­mu­ni­ties since the US mil­i­tary be­gan op­er­a­tions in Sep­tem­ber,” he said.

Nev­er­the­less, oth­er fish­ers claimed to have ob­served burnt wreck­age and de­bris in off­shore wa­ters. Ker­ry Arthur, a lo­cal busi­ness­man in To­co, not­ed that while his bar and mi­ni-mart have not yet been di­rect­ly af­fect­ed, re­duced ac­tiv­i­ty among fish­er­folk could rip­ple through the lo­cal econ­o­my.

“Fish­er­men are be­ing very cau­tious; they’re not go­ing far, and it’s ham­per­ing their catch. That af­fects spend­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty,” he said.

Arthur al­so raised con­cerns about a brief height­ened state of alert from Fri­day morn­ing to late Sat­ur­day evening, which left res­i­dents un­set­tled due to a lack of clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion from Gov­ern­ment.

“We’re not re­al­ly get­ting any di­rect in­for­ma­tion, so we’re on­ly read­ing how things are hap­pen­ing. Once some­thing hap­pens, we will re­act, and you can’t blame peo­ple for pan­ic-buy­ing… these are all things that are un­heard of,” he said.