Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@guardian.co.tt

As the year 2025 drew to a close, events moved quick­ly and of­ten over­lapped, cre­at­ing a sense that the coun­try was si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly look­ing out­ward to an un­cer­tain geopo­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment and in­ward to un­re­solved struc­tur­al and so­cial chal­lenges.

From con­cerns over a US mil­i­tary in­stalled radar near To­ba­go’s air­port to the cor­ri­dors of Cari­com, from the hills of Pi­paro to the pock­ets of pub­lic ser­vants, De­cem­ber of­fered a com­pressed por­trait of a na­tion un­der pres­sure and in tran­si­tion.

The month’s sto­ry­line be­gan qui­et­ly but gained mo­men­tum as re­ports con­firmed the es­tab­lish­ment of a US-sup­port­ed radar sys­tem at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in To­ba­go. While Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials de­scribed the in­stal­la­tion as part of long-stand­ing co­op­er­a­tion to com­bat drug traf­fick­ing and transna­tion­al crime, the tim­ing and lo­ca­tion of the radar placed it square­ly with­in a broad­er and in­creas­ing­ly volatile re­gion­al con­text.

The radar’s pres­ence quick­ly be­came sym­bol­ic of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s evolv­ing se­cu­ri­ty pos­ture at a time when ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela were es­ca­lat­ing sharply.

When asked, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that a pho­to of what ap­peared to be a US mil­i­tary base in To­ba­go near the site of the radar, in fact, showed what she de­scribed as “sup­port of­fices” for the mil­i­tary radar sys­tem on the is­land.

“The pic­ture is self-ex­plana­to­ry. There is a radar with the sup­port of­fices to op­er­ate it.”

Anx­i­eties were com­pound­ed by con­fir­ma­tion that US mil­i­tary air­craft had been grant­ed ac­cess to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s air­ports for re­fu­elling and lo­gis­ti­cal pur­pos­es.

THA’s mi­nor­i­ty leader, Kelvon Mor­ris, ar­gued that the radar and US mil­i­tary pres­ence threat­ened to harm the is­land’s tourism sec­tor, a cor­ner­stone of its econ­o­my.

“I have been re­li­ably ad­vised that a num­ber of cruise ship calls have al­ready been can­celled over this very is­sue, and now that we are hear­ing of even more mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty, you could imag­ine the dam­age that will do to our very volatile tourism sec­tor.”

Ac­cord­ing to Mor­ris, hote­liers had al­so re­port­ed an in­crease in can­cel­la­tions, as vis­i­tors grew wary of va­ca­tion­ing in a des­ti­na­tion per­ceived to be linked to po­ten­tial mil­i­tary con­flict.

Gov­ern­ment, how­ev­er, sought to frame the radar de­ploy­ment with­in the con­text of en­hanced counter-nar­cotics and se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion with the Unit­ed States.

“The items on the agen­da for Trinidad and To­ba­go are about drugs, drug run­ning, hu­man traf­fick­ing, and gun run­ning. We can’t be liv­ing here with over 600 mur­ders a year and feel that every­thing is “hon­key dorey” and that we are in a zone of peace, we are not.”

The con­tro­ver­sy grew against the back­drop of the up­com­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 12, 2026, with Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine not­ing that he had not been con­sult­ed.

He al­so made it clear that had the de­ci­sion rest­ed sole­ly with him, he would have re­ject­ed the in­stal­la­tion of the US mil­i­tary radar in To­ba­go and per­mis­sion for US mil­i­tary air­craft to use To­ba­go’s air­port.

“Be­cause at the end of the day, gov­er­nance must be about what the peo­ple of To­ba­go want, and I’ve al­ways rep­re­sent­ed the views of To­ba­go.”

While the radar’s es­tab­lish­ment trig­gered ques­tions about sov­er­eign­ty, trans­paren­cy and for­eign mil­i­tary in­flu­ence, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice moved to demon­strate its prac­ti­cal val­ue in strength­en­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and dis­rupt­ing or­gan­ised crime.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS, in­tel­li­gence gen­er­at­ed by the radar sys­tem di­rect­ly led to a co­or­di­nat­ed an­ti-nar­cotics op­er­a­tion that re­sult­ed in the re­cov­ery of 1,560 kilo­grams of mar­i­jua­na, with an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of $171 mil­lion, mak­ing it one of the largest mar­i­jua­na seizures for the year.

The radar de­bate could not be sep­a­rat­ed from events un­fold­ing just across the Gulf of Paria.

Through­out De­cem­ber, me­dia re­ports, lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, chron­i­cled a sig­nif­i­cant es­ca­la­tion in US–US-Venezuela ten­sions, in­clud­ing mar­itime in­ter­dic­tions, in­ten­si­fied sanc­tions en­force­ment, a block­ade im­posed by the Don­ald Trump-led ad­min­is­tra­tion on un­sanc­tioned oil tankers and rhetoric sug­gest­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of wider con­fronta­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­sist­ed that the coun­try was not in­volved in the block­ade, which Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties said was aimed at steal­ing their coun­try’s oil, land, and min­er­als.

Cari­com frac­ture?

It was al­so against this back­drop that the coun­try’s re­la­tion­ship with Cari­com came un­der strain.

The fall­out was trig­gered by crit­i­cism from Per­sad-Bisses­sar of Cari­com’s po­si­tions on in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing Venezuela.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Cari­com had cho­sen to dis­par­age “our great­est al­ly, the Unit­ed States” while “lend­ing sup­port to the (Nico­las) Maduro nar­co-gov­ern­ment head­ed by a dic­ta­tor who has im­pris­oned and killed thou­sands of civil­ians and op­po­si­tion mem­bers as well as threat­ened two Cari­com mem­bers”.

She said that Cari­com had “clear­ly lost its way” and there were reper­cus­sions for this stance.

De­scrib­ing the re­gion­al body as “not a re­li­able part­ner at this time,” the Prime Min­is­ter ac­cused Cari­com of be­ing dys­func­tion­al.

“The or­gan­i­sa­tion is de­te­ri­o­rat­ing rapid­ly due to poor man­age­ment, lax ac­count­abil­i­ty, fac­tion­al di­vi­sions, desta­bil­is­ing poli­cies, pri­vate con­flicts be­tween re­gion­al lead­ers and po­lit­i­cal par­ties and the in­ap­pro­pri­ate med­dling in the do­mes­tic pol­i­tics of mem­ber states. That’s the plain truth.”

The re­marks prompt­ed swift re­spons­es from oth­er Caribbean lead­ers, who de­fend­ed Cari­com as an es­sen­tial fo­rum for col­lec­tive diplo­ma­cy and warned against frag­men­ta­tion at a time of glob­al un­cer­tain­ty.

In a Face­book post, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da’s Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne re­ject­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s as­ser­tions fol­low­ing the Unit­ed States’ De­cem­ber 16 an­nounce­ment of par­tial en­try re­stric­tions on na­tion­als of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and Do­mini­ca, and her sub­se­quent de­ci­sion to dis­tance T&T from a Cari­com Bu­reau state­ment ex­press­ing con­cern.

“An­tigua and Bar­bu­da has nev­er ques­tioned the sov­er­eign right of any Cari­com mem­ber to con­duct its bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions as it sees fit,” Browne wrote.

“Equal­ly, no mem­ber should ques­tion the le­git­i­ma­cy of an­oth­er Cari­com state en­gag­ing re­spon­si­bly, trans­par­ent­ly, and re­spect­ful­ly with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States.”

Browne then turned to what he called the eco­nom­ic facts, which he said flat­ly con­tra­dict­ed claims that Cari­com has failed T&T.

The force of na­ture

While geopo­lit­i­cal and diplo­mat­ic is­sues dom­i­nat­ed head­lines, De­cem­ber de­liv­ered a stark re­minder that nat­ur­al forces re­main among the coun­try’s most un­pre­dictable chal­lenges.

The erup­tion of the Pi­paro mud vol­cano on Christ­mas Eve in Cen­tral Trinidad forced evac­u­a­tions, dam­aged prop­er­ties, and re­vived painful mem­o­ries of the dev­as­tat­ing 1997 erup­tion that de­stroyed much of the vil­lage.

Res­i­dents watched as mud and gas breached the sur­face once again, while emer­gency crews worked to se­cure the area and as­sist af­fect­ed fam­i­lies.

Fi­del Solomon, who lives close to the site, told Guardian Me­dia the sit­u­a­tion was worse than the ma­jor erup­tion a few years ago, when his home was split.

As a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure, Solomon be­gan pack­ing his be­long­ings, brac­ing for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of evac­u­a­tion.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Aarif Dhan­path, re­called that mud was spew­ing about 10 to 15 feet in­to the air, and fumes were es­cap­ing from the dome.

Miss­ing fire­man mur­dered

On the crime front, rel­a­tives and col­leagues of kid­napped fire­fight­er Bruce Leza­ma had their worst fears re­alised yes­ter­day af­ter a body be­lieved to be his was spot­ted down a precipice along the Blan­chisseuse Road, Ari­ma, on De­cem­ber 30. Leza­ma, 46, of Andy Es­tate, which is lo­cat­ed off the Bye-Pass Road in Ari­ma, had been miss­ing since De­cem­ber 27.

The fire­fight­er with 17 years of ser­vice was re­port­ed­ly kid­napped from his home by two armed men and forcibly bun­dled in­to his sil­ver Ti­i­da car. He had been last as­signed to the Am­bu­lance Unit Head­quar­ters of the North­ern Di­vi­sion, which is based at Wright­son Road in Port-of-Spain. Leza­ma’s car was found aban­doned on Tumpuna Road South hours af­ter he was tak­en from the house. CCTV footage showed Leza­ma had been chased by the two in­trud­ers, who bound his hands and dragged him to his car be­fore they got in and sped off. He was one of 368 peo­ple mur­dered in 2025. The sta­tis­tic was a sharp de­cline from the 624 mur­ders in 2024. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed the coun­try had record­ed a 42% de­crease in its mur­der toll in the fi­nal hours of 2025, as the new year ap­proached.

In a post on X, the Prime Min­is­ter stat­ed: “By mid­night, our na­tion­al mur­der rate will be down by 42%- the largest ever de­cline in our na­tion’s his­to­ry and one of the most sig­nif­i­cant drops glob­al­ly this year.”

As she thanked those at the helm of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and law en­force­ment in this coun­try, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “Our fight con­tin­ues. Our coun­try de­serves safe­ty, sta­bil­i­ty and peace- and we are mak­ing it hap­pen.

Mon­ey wor­ries

But it was not all bad or con­tro­ver­sial news in the last month of the year. De­cem­ber al­so de­liv­ered a mea­sure of re­lief for thou­sands of work­ers as the Gov­ern­ment, who re­ceived back­pay af­ter their union, the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion, se­cured a 10 per cent in­crease with the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer in No­vem­ber.

The Prime Min­is­ter re­vealed that Gov­ern­ment had ful­filled its promise to pay back­pay to pub­lic ser­vants be­fore Christ­mas, and that the re­main­ing out­stand­ing ar­rears will be set­tled in the new year in ac­cor­dance with the law. Among those af­fect­ed were RHA work­ers.

“I wish I had all the mon­ey in the world in the bank, I would pay every sin­gle one of you, but we don’t have that mon­ey to make every­thing hap­pen be­fore Christ­mas.”

Fi­nan­cial is­sues were the main fac­tor for the de­ci­sion to use the old Coat of Arms.

Orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled to be re­placed by a new­ly de­signed em­blem, which saw Christo­pher Colum­bus’s three ships be­ing re­placed by the steel­pan, by Jan­u­ary 2026, the Gov­ern­ment ex­tend­ed its of­fi­cial use un­til Jan­u­ary 2, 2031, through a for­mal le­gal no­tice.

Pan Trin­ba­go has since ex­pressed deep dis­ap­point­ment over the move.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said it un­der­mined the his­toric amend­ment passed in Feb­ru­ary 2025, which had re­ceived unan­i­mous sup­port in Par­lia­ment and for­mal­ly recog­nised the steel­pan as part of the coun­try’s na­tion­al em­blem.

“We are deeply dis­ap­point­ed. Both the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion stood shoul­der to shoul­der in full sup­port of the amend­ment. It was de­bat­ed, scru­ti­nised, passed, as­sent­ed to, and pro­claimed. To now de­fer im­ple­men­ta­tion to 2031 sends an un­for­tu­nate mes­sage, not on­ly to the Steel­band com­mu­ni­ty, but to every cit­i­zen who cel­e­brat­ed this long-await­ed mo­ment of na­tion­al pride,” Pan Trin­ba­go Pres­i­dent Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moose said.

How­ev­er, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­tain the old Coat of Arms dur­ing a tran­si­tion pe­ri­od, say­ing the move was dri­ven by prac­ti­cal­i­ty and cost con­sid­er­a­tions that will save the coun­try mil­lions of dol­lars.

Tan­coo said a phased tran­si­tion was nec­es­sary, giv­en the scale of changes re­quired across the pub­lic ser­vice and abroad.

Christ­mas sur­pris­es

The Gov­ern­ment’s Christ­mas Day pub­li­ca­tion of le­gal no­tices im­pos­ing sweep­ing in­creas­es in traf­fic fines and cus­toms fees al­so dom­i­nat­ed head­lines and sparked de­bate.

The le­gal changes, ef­fec­tive from Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, in­clude a dou­bling of most traf­fic fines un­der the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act, a move au­thor­i­ties frame as a crack­down on road law­less­ness and an ef­fort to im­prove safe­ty.

Com­mon of­fences such as fail­ing to wear seat­belts, im­prop­er over­tak­ing, mo­bile phone use while dri­ving and il­le­gal park­ing now at­tract fines of $2,000, up from pre­vi­ous lev­els, with high­er penal­ties for greater speed vi­o­la­tions.

The fine for dri­ving with­out valid mo­tor in­sur­ance has risen dra­mat­i­cal­ly, by up to ten­fold, to $10,000 for first-time of­fend­ers.

The Gov­ern­ment de­fend­ed these mea­sures as long-over­due en­hance­ments to de­ter­rence and pub­lic safe­ty, with the Prime Min­is­ter in­sist­ing the mea­sures were nec­es­sary to re­store or­der in a coun­try she said had be­come a “law­less dump.” Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les sharply re­buked the in­creas­es, as­sert­ing that the hikes place un­due fi­nan­cial bur­dens on or­di­nary cit­i­zens and ef­fec­tive­ly op­er­ate as rev­enue-rais­ing mech­a­nisms at the ex­pense of al­ready strug­gling house­holds.

“The Prime Min­is­ter must im­me­di­ate­ly re­con­sid­er and re­verse these un­jus­ti­fied price hikes, and we de­mand that she comes clean with the na­tion about the true state of the coun­try’s fi­nances.”

Beck­les point­ed out that in the 2025/2026 Bud­get, the Gov­ern­ment es­ti­mat­ed po­ten­tial rev­enues based on glob­al oil prices of US$70 a bar­rel, when the cur­rent price is US$56.

“As a re­sult, the Gov­ern­ment has cho­sen to squeeze the pop­u­la­tion through ex­ces­sive tax­a­tion, puni­tive fines, and in­tim­i­da­tion,” Beck­les said.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so took aim at Per­sad-Bisses­sar, ac­cus­ing her of pre­sid­ing over what he de­scribed as a “hate­ful, spite­ful and vin­dic­tive reign,” fol­low­ing her as­ser­tion that T&T has be­come a law­less coun­try.

Row­ley said the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments and re­cent pol­i­cy de­ci­sions re­flect a reck­less ap­proach to gov­er­nance and a dis­re­gard for the coun­try’s fu­ture.

“Clear­ly, this is a Prime Min­is­ter who does not care about what she does to and about this coun­try,” Row­ley said, adding that her con­duct should sur­prise no one who has been close­ly ob­serv­ing her style of lead­er­ship.

Aside from the in­crease in fines for traf­fic of­fences, ad­min­is­tra­tive fees tied to Cus­toms process­es have al­so dou­bled, as well as the toll to be paid by maxi taxi dri­vers for use of the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route.

On Old Year’s Day, De­cem­ber 31, fur­ther le­gal no­tices saw in­creas­es in pass­port fees, reg­is­ter­ing births and deaths, ap­pli­ca­tions for cit­i­zen­ship and firearms li­cence fees.

A stal­wart ex­its

The last month of the year al­so brought a mo­ment of re­flec­tion with the death of Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment stal­wart Fer­di­nand “Fer­die” Fer­reira.

Fer­reira was wide­ly re­gard­ed as a dis­ci­plined or­gan­is­er, loy­al par­ty man and ded­i­cat­ed pub­lic ser­vant. Trib­utes poured in from across the po­lit­i­cal spec­trum, with many de­scrib­ing him as part of a gen­er­a­tion that helped shape Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mod­ern po­lit­i­cal cul­ture.

Fer­reira, who was 93 years old at the time of his death, was re­mem­bered as a grass­roots fig­ure who rose from hum­ble be­gin­nings to be­come one of the most in­flu­en­tial voic­es in T&T’s po­lit­i­cal land­scape.

His pass­ing came at a time when the PNM it­self had un­der­gone gen­er­a­tional changes to its lead­er­ship and ex­ec­u­tive.

By the time De­cem­ber drew to a close, Trinidad and To­ba­go had weath­ered a con­ver­gence of events that re­vealed both its vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and its re­silience.