Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers is firm­ly re­ject­ing claims by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley that the now-re­moved radar in To­ba­go was de­ployed sole­ly to sup­port a Unit­ed States op­er­a­tion tar­get­ing Nicolás Maduro.

Days af­ter the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary cap­tured the for­mer Venezue­lan pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro, Sobers told Guardian Me­dia that Trinidad and To­ba­go had “ab­solute­ly no role” in the op­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing any use of mil­i­tary as­sets or re­sources.

And yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing Dr Row­ley’s ac­cu­sa­tion that the radar in To­ba­go was in­tend­ed for “po­lit­i­cal ma­noeu­vring” in Venezuela, Sobers again sought to firm­ly dis­miss any link be­tween T&T and Maduro’s ar­rest.

“I re­it­er­ate that no in­stru­ments here, in­clu­sive of the radar, ever played a part. Trinidad and To­ba­go reaf­firms we did not play any part, we were not utilised or used in any way in fur­ther­ance of the events of Jan­u­ary 3,” Sobers said.

He added, “So I re­fute and re­pu­di­ate any as­sump­tion to the con­trary of that made by the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter.”

Min­is­ter Sobers called on Dr Row­ley to pro­duce any in­for­ma­tion or ev­i­dence he has to back up that bold claim.

“Pro­duce your ev­i­dence to demon­strate that.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so asked Min­is­ter Sobers to re­spond to Dr Row­ley’s claim that the Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion is now mock­ing T&T af­ter suc­cess­ful­ly us­ing its ter­ri­to­ry to ad­vance its own po­lit­i­cal and mil­i­tary agen­da.

“I think every­body’s laugh­ing at Dr Row­ley, on­ly for what could on­ly be de­scribed as a crazy melt­down that was dubbed as a press con­fer­ence by the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter,” Sobers re­spond­ed.

Mum on radar re­moval

Mean­while, Min­is­ter Sobers, who sits on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, could not clar­i­fy why the US-in­stalled radar in To­ba­go, which was con­stant­ly praised as an im­por­tant na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty as­set, was re­moved.

“I would state at this point in time all of those things are na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues, and I re­al­ly can­not com­ment on that at this junc­ture.”

Pressed for an­swers con­sid­er­ing how much the gov­ern­ment hailed the radar as a crime de­ter­rent, Sobers replied, “The crime-fight­ing tools that are at the dis­pos­al of the vary­ing arms of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus are wide. Many of those tools are be­ing utilised cur­rent­ly dur­ing this SOE (State of Emer­gency), and many of the tools are be­ing utilised be­fore the SOE as well, too. As it per­tains to the par­tic­u­lar use­ful­ness of the radar in fur­ther­ance of those crime-fight­ing ap­pa­ra­tus, I would not want to com­ment on that be­cause I be­lieve it’s a sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue.”

But Sobers un­der­scored that the ab­sence of the radar does not leave T&T vul­ner­a­ble.

“I am ful­ly con­fi­dent in the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus Trinidad and To­ba­go has. I’m ful­ly con­fi­dent in the Min­is­ters of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and the Min­is­ter of De­fence.”

Sobers al­so de­clined to com­ment when asked if this coun­try re­quest­ed that the radar be moved or if it was tak­en away fol­low­ing con­sul­ta­tion.