Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has cau­tioned cit­i­zens to be vig­i­lant against the spread of mis­in­for­ma­tion, fol­low­ing a pub­lic re­but­tal by US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio of a CNN re­port claim­ing that the Unit­ed King­dom was with­hold­ing in­tel­li­gence shar­ing over Amer­i­ca’s re­gion­al an­ti-drug op­er­a­tions.

In a state­ment shared on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the re­port as part of “bla­tant at­tempts to un­der­mine on­go­ing ef­forts to con­front nar­co-traf­fick­ers and or­gan­ised crime.”

“Once again, US Sec­re­tary of State @Se­cRu­bio has re­fut­ed a false re­port pub­lished in the in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia, a sto­ry that was ir­re­spon­si­bly re­peat­ed by some lo­cal out­lets and pre­sent­ed to our cit­i­zens as fact. There are bla­tant at­tempts to un­der­mine on­go­ing ef­forts to con­front nar­co-traf­fick­ers and or­gan­ised crime. My Gov­ern­ment re­mains stead­fast in its part­ner­ship with the Unit­ed States as we take de­ci­sive, co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion to stem the flow of drugs, guns, and hu­man traf­fick­ing in­to T&T,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia sent sev­er­al ques­tions to the British High Com­mis­sion, in­clud­ing: did the UK com­mu­ni­cate any changes in its in­tel­li­gence-shar­ing pol­i­cy to re­gion­al gov­ern­ments, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, and whether the UK was con­cerned about the le­gal­i­ty of US mil­i­tary in­ter­dic­tions in Caribbean wa­ters.

In re­sponse, an of­fi­cial in­di­cat­ed, “We do not com­ment on mat­ters re­lat­ed to in­tel­li­gence. The US de­ploy­ment to the South­ern Caribbean is a mat­ter for the US.  The US re­mains our clos­est al­ly and part­ner on se­cu­ri­ty glob­al­ly.”

The Prime Min­is­ter added that the coun­try’s fight against or­gan­ised crime is be­ing re­in­forced through clos­er col­lab­o­ra­tion with US au­thor­i­ties.

“The Caribbean can­not be called a zone of peace, and Trinidad and To­ba­go will not be one, so long as pow­er­ful car­tels con­tin­ue to wreak hav­oc and de­stroy lives,” she said, re­it­er­at­ing that her ad­min­is­tra­tion is com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems.

Her com­ment came af­ter the US con­duct­ed its 20th strike on an al­leged drug traf­fick­ing boat ear­li­er this week.

“The strike oc­curred in the Caribbean and four nar­co-ter­ror­ists were killed, no sur­vivors,” CNN re­port­ed yes­ter­day. It said the strike oc­curred on Mon­day. US Sec­re­tary of War Pe­te Hegseth pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced two Sun­day strikes, the 18th and 19th, con­duct­ed by the US mil­i­tary, on two ves­sels each with three peo­ple aboard. Hegseth said in a post on X the fol­low­ing day that those strikes killed all six. So far, 80 peo­ple have been killed in the US strikes.

Al­so yes­ter­day, Hegseth an­nounced a mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion called “South­ern Spear”.

In a mes­sage on X, Hegseth said it will be led by a spe­cif­ic joint task force and the South­ern Com­mand, which com­pris­es US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in South Amer­i­ca, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, and the Caribbean.

He said South­ern Spear’s mis­sion is to de­fend the US and re­move nar­co-ter­ror­ists and se­cure the US from “drugs that are killing our peo­ple”. He added the West­ern Hemi­sphere is Amer­i­ca’s neigh­bour­hood and “we will pro­tect it.”