Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A US Mass Com­mu­ni­ca­tion spe­cial­ist’s ra­dio an­nounce­ment has con­firmed that the radar in­stalled by the US mil­i­tary forces in Trinidad and To­ba­go is in­deed an AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR radar - and that of­fi­cials say “it can be used in US con­flict with Venezuela.”

This in­for­ma­tion was con­veyed by US Mass Com­mu­ni­ca­tion spe­cial­ist 2nd Class Natasha Cheva­lier Losa­da, who re­cent­ly shared de­tails of the To­ba­go radar in­stal­la­tion to naval of­fi­cers through their ra­dio sta­tion AFN Guan­tanamo Bay (Ra­dio GT­MO).

Ra­dio GT­MO is the US mil­i­tary ra­dio sta­tion at the Guan­tanamo Bay Naval Base (GT­MO) in Cu­ba. It is op­er­at­ed lo­cal­ly by Mass Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and In­te­ri­or Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Elec­tri­cian sailors of the US Navy. The sta­tion serves Amer­i­can ser­vice per­son­nel and their fam­i­lies sta­tioned at the mil­i­tary base.

Losa­da, in the ra­dio clip (cit­ed by US De­part­ment of War con­tacts), said, “Amer­i­can mil­i­tary forces have in­stalled an AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR sys­tem in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The sur­veil­lance sys­tem pri­mar­i­ly func­tions as aer­i­al sur­veil­lance but of­fi­cials say it can be used in US con­flict with Venezuela.”

She added, “To­ba­go is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 70 miles from Venezuela’s Paria penin­su­la. Man­u­fac­tur­er Northrop Grum­man said the sys­tem is able to quote ‘de­tect, track and tar­get the world’s most so­phis­ti­cat­ed air­borne threats and high­ly con­test­ed en­vi­ron­ments,’ end quote.”

Losa­da con­tin­ued, “The sys­tem has a 360-de­gree max­i­mum range of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 170 miles per air sur­veil­lance and track­ing.”

She added, “Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, said of the in­stal­la­tion, quote ‘They will help us to im­prove our sur­veil­lance in the in­tel­li­gence of the radar for the nar­co-traf­fick­ers in our wa­ter and out­side our wa­ters,’ end quote.”

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge didn’t im­me­di­ate­ly re­ply to Guardian Me­dia query yes­ter­day on the US state­ment, in­clud­ing that the radar can “be used in US con­flict with Venezuela.” Nor did Sturge re­ply on how long the US Marines who are in To­ba­go are stay­ing and if this is like­ly to be un­til mid-Feb­ru­ary 2026.

In No­vem­ber, the US Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion no­ti­fied op­er­a­tors be­tween Puer­to Ri­co and the South­ern Caribbean to ex­er­cise ex­treme cau­tion from then un­til Feb­ru­ary 16, 2026, due to in­creased state air­craft in that area.

PNM’s Young: Lack of in­fo to cit­i­zens on radar, re­fin­ery

Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment MP Stu­art Young, speak­ing about the lack of Gov­ern­ment in­for­ma­tion on var­i­ous is­sues yes­ter­day, said, “The Prime Min­is­ter and her two Min­is­ters of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty have con­tin­u­ous­ly dis­re­spect­ed cit­i­zens by re­fus­ing to pro­vide us with any mean­ing­ful in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to for­eign mil­i­tary as­sets be­ing placed in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“It is fright­en­ing how in­com­pe­tent and dis­hon­est the Prime Min­is­ter and her Min­is­ters are and T&T is suf­fer­ing as a re­sult.”

Young called out Gov­ern­ment on an­oth­er area where he said in­for­ma­tion is lack­ing af­ter last week’s Gov­ern­ment state­ment on the Petrotrin re­fin­ery re­port.

He said, “Noth­ing de­fin­i­tive has been said by the Prime Min­is­ter and her two En­er­gy Min­is­ters with re­spect to the re­fin­ery. They con­tin­ue a ‘smoke and mir­rors’ ap­proach. Ques­tions need an­swer­ing on the cost of restart­ing the re­fin­ery. It’s es­ti­mat­ed at ap­prox­i­mate­ly (US)$1 bil­lion.

“But no one has done a prop­er as­set in­tegri­ty as­sess­ment and cost­ing. Who’s go­ing to spend (US)$1 bil­lion to restart an aged re­fin­ery? Where will the crude oil come from? You’d have to buy with US dol­lars and im­port ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100,000 bar­rels of crude oil dai­ly, spend­ing about (US)$6.3 mil­lion on pur­chase and im­por­ta­tion. Ques­tions need an­swer­ing—not pos­ing with peo­ple hold­ing up a doc­u­ment for a pho­to op­por­tu­ni­ty!”

Young urged the pub­lic not to ac­cept any at­tempt by the UNC Gov­ern­ment to pri­va­tise, via sale, lease or oth­er arrange­ment, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd un­der the dis­guise of a re­fin­ery restart, “... as this will jeop­ar­dise T&T’s do­mes­tic fu­el sup­ply and is al­so cer­tain to en­sure that the re­fin­ery isn’t restart­ed. Paria’s bunker­ing as­sets are sep­a­rate to the re­fin­ery and shouldn’t leave T&T con­trol.”

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal didn’t re­ply to queries yes­ter­day on whether Paria and Her­itage will be part of the pub­lic of­fer of the re­fin­ery com­plex, what the restart cost is and where the crude oil will come from.