JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Mil­i­tary sources say the train­ing ex­er­cis­es be­tween the Unit­ed States Marines and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment will in­clude counter-ter­ror­ism strate­gies aimed at safe­guard­ing State as­sets from crim­i­nals.

On Sun­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar took to X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) to wel­come the Unit­ed States Ma­rine Corps 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit. She said mil­i­tary drills be­gan on Sun­day and will con­tin­ue through No­vem­ber 21.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the joint ex­er­cis­es are cru­cial to this coun­try’s fight against crime and to en­sur­ing the pre­pared­ness of the T&T De­fence Force.

“To win the fight against or­gan­ised crime, we must strength­en and mod­ernise our crime-fight­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ty. These joint ex­er­cis­es with the Unit­ed States are a crit­i­cal step in en­hanc­ing the TTDF’s readi­ness, in­tel­li­gence ca­pa­bil­i­ty, and op­er­a­tional strength.”

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Ch­aguara­mas yes­ter­day, there was no un­usu­al ac­tiv­i­ty at the en­trance to Teteron Bar­racks, nor was there any vis­i­ble move­ment at the He­li­port or the shoot­ing range.

A mil­i­tary source said most of the train­ing will take place in­side Teteron Bar­racks, away from “pry­ing eyes.”

“They will be re­view­ing and in­struct­ing lo­cal sol­diers on re­gain­ing con­trol of gov­ern­ment build­ings and oth­er in­sti­tu­tions, should the build­ings be tak­en over by out­side forces. The use of he­li­copters will come in­to play.”

Some of the ex­er­cis­es are ex­pect­ed to be con­duct­ed at oth­er mil­i­tary bases across the coun­try, but sources did not pro­vide de­tails.

Last Fri­day, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers said the marines would be par­tic­i­pat­ing in a se­ries of mil­i­tary drills be­tween No­vem­ber 16 and 21. He said the train­ing would take place in both ur­ban and rur­al en­vi­ron­ments across T&T and be­tween dusk and af­ter dark. He added that US mil­i­tary he­li­copters would be used in the drills.

Catholic Com­mis­sion

calls for calm

The train­ing comes as the Catholic Com­mis­sion for So­cial Jus­tice (CC­SJ) yes­ter­day is­sued a strong ap­peal for calm and di­a­logue amid es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions in the South­ern Caribbean.

In a me­dia re­lease, the CC­SJ said there has been grow­ing un­ease in the re­gion. This fol­lows the ar­rival of the USS Ger­ald R Ford, the world’s largest air­craft car­ri­er, in Caribbean wa­ters.

The de­ploy­ment forms part of Op­er­a­tion South­ern Spear, which comes af­ter a se­ries of what have been de­scribed as ex­tra­ju­di­cial strikes on sus­pect­ed drug-smug­gling ves­sels. The strikes have killed some 83 peo­ple since they be­gan in Sep­tem­ber.

“The CC­SJ un­equiv­o­cal­ly con­demns the re­cent ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings of sus­pect­ed drug couri­ers in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters. Such acts vi­o­late Ar­ti­cle 6 of the In­ter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Po­lit­i­cal Rights, which guar­an­tees the right to life, and stand in grave con­tra­dic­tion to Catholic moral teach­ing and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­itime law, both of which re­quire hu­mane treat­ment for every per­son, even when ac­cused of a crime.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion added that no one can claim the right to de­stroy an in­no­cent hu­man be­ing, as the Church has de­clared all forms of ex­tra­ju­di­cial ex­e­cu­tion in­ad­mis­si­ble be­cause they de­ny the sa­cred­ness of life. It fur­ther stat­ed that “jus­tice with­out mer­cy ceas­es to be just.”

In its state­ment, the CC­SJ urged that the re­gion re­main a “zone of peace.” It said the in­creas­ing mil­i­tari­sa­tion of re­gion­al wa­ters has un­set­tled so­ci­eties and en­dan­gered the frag­ile fab­ric of re­gion­al uni­ty.

“The threat of con­flict and so­cial frag­men­ta­tion chal­lenges us to re­spond with faith, pru­dence, and com­pas­sion. The CC­SJ prays that our re­gion­al and na­tion­al lead­ers will choose the path of di­a­logue over di­vi­sion, and that our peo­ples will re­ject fear and in­dif­fer­ence.”