RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Lead­ing Caribbean-born schol­ar in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions and glob­al gov­er­nance, Pro­fes­sor Andy Knight, has cau­tioned that while T&T stands to ben­e­fit from joint train­ing ex­er­cis­es with the Unit­ed States Ma­rine Corps, the na­tion must care­ful­ly weigh the strate­gic costs as they re­late to its sov­er­eign­ty.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sive­ly to Guardian Me­dia, Pro­fes­sor Knight said, “The on­go­ing train­ing by US Marines in Trinidad and To­ba­go is part of a long­stand­ing part­ner­ship be­tween the US and TTDF to en­hance se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion and build ca­pac­i­ty in ad­dress­ing com­mon threats like drug traf­fick­ing and gang vi­o­lence.”

Knight, who al­so served as di­rec­tor of the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions (IIR) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), not­ed the di­rect op­er­a­tional ben­e­fits of the ex­er­cis­es.

“The train­ing with US Marines al­lows TTDF per­son­nel to be­come fa­mil­iar with US tac­tics and tech­niques, thus po­ten­tial­ly en­hanc­ing their ca­pac­i­ty to ad­dress do­mes­tic se­cu­ri­ty is­sues like drug-re­lat­ed crimes and gang vi­o­lence,” he said.

But Pro­fes­sor Knight cau­tioned about broad­er geopo­lit­i­cal risks. “Get­ting en­tan­gled with a coun­try that is los­ing its cred­i­bil­i­ty and in­flu­ence around the world, that is cur­rent­ly in­volved in ex­tra­ju­di­cial mur­der on the high seas close to Caribbean wa­ters, is some­thing that the T&T gov­ern­ment should think hard about,” he said.

He al­so high­light­ed re­gion­al con­cerns re­gard­ing Venezuela.

The joint train­ing ex­er­cis­es be­tween the US Marines and the TTDF will take place from No­vem­ber 16 to 21.

Pro­fes­sor Knight placed the ex­er­cis­es in a his­tor­i­cal and po­lit­i­cal con­text, ref­er­enc­ing shifts in T&T’s ap­proach to Venezuela.

“I know the PM of T&T now thinks that the Caribbean is not a zone of peace. But I was present in T&T, as Di­rec­tor of the IIR, when she was play­ing a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent tune. I have the re­ceipts in the form of record­ings and videos in which Kam­la Per­sad-Biss­esar praised Maduro and spoke glow­ing­ly about the fu­ture of strength­ened TT-Venezuela ties. It makes me won­der, who is now ad­vis­ing the Prime Min­is­ter?” he said.

The US Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain un­der­scored the part­ner­ship’s col­lab­o­ra­tive na­ture, not­ing that ex­er­cis­es are co­or­di­nat­ed close­ly with TTDF lead­er­ship, na­tion­al of­fi­cials, and emer­gency ser­vices. “The en­gage­ment pri­ori­tis­es part­ner­ship, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and shared ex­pe­ri­ences, in­clud­ing meals and in­for­mal in­ter­ac­tions that fos­ter ca­ma­raderie and mu­tu­al re­spect,” said US Em­bassy Chargé d’Af­faires Dr Jenifer Nei­d­hart de Or­tiz.