PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Defence Minister Wayne Sturge is questioning whether it would be in the public interest to know whether or not United States military officials are stationed in Trinidad and Tobago and how many are stationed there.
“I will not disclose the numbers that would be unwise. I don’t think anywhere that sort of information would be disclosed, because it is not in the public interest, unless you can tell me how the public would be well served by knowing that. Until you tell, you could justify that, I wouldn’t be providing that information,” Sturge told reporters at the weekly post-Cabinet news conference.
Asked whether the country needed to know if there are foreign military personnel on the island, Sturge responded by saying, “You have a right to know?… Okay, you have a right, where you get that right.”
But as the reporter insisted that it is his country and he has a right to know, Sturge responded saying “it is your country, the fact that there are military personnel here does that take away from your sovereignty or does it not add to your sovereignty when the enemy would be narco traffickers who we have not been able to contain over so many decades.
“You just told me you had a right to know. Where did you get that right? Can you show me where you get that right?” said Sturge, who is also a criminal attorney, adding, “Can you tell me the source of that right?”
Sturge also referenced the book The Art of War by Sun Tzu, noting that when you are at your strongest, you should give the impression that you are at your weakest; and when you are at your weakest, you should give the impression that you are at your strongest.
He said the country has effectively been at war with narco-traffickers since the 1990s, with the impact visible in the inability to stem the flow of drugs and guns.
Most murders, he added, were gun- and drug-related, with firearms the weapon of choice.
“They are fighting basically over drug turf so if we have not been able to stem that over the last three decades or so, and we are getting assistance in doing it now, should I tell the narco-traffickers, well, we have X amount of US personnel here, and this is where they are stationed, so that they’ll know well how to conduct their business? No, that’s not how it’s done,” said Sturge.
Sturge also confirmed that the US military radar system that had been erected here at the height of the US war on drugs in the Caribbean, which coincided with the US military invasion of Venezuela to remove its leader, Nicholas Maduro, on drug and gun-related charges.
He told reporters that the facility would remain in Tobago for some time because it is needed along with US troops on the ground to assist in the fight against crime.
Last November, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar confirmed that United States Marines had installed a radar system at the ANR Robinson International Airport on the sister island.
She said then that it was not intended to launch any attack against Venezuela, but to enhance surveillance against narcotics traffickers.
The radar, an AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR), is a multi-mission air and missile surveillance system, and Sturge said Trinidad and Tobago needs the system, but would not provide timelines.
“We would have the use of the radar for the foreseeable future. I can’t give a definitive timeline, but we need it because we already have a radar centre, but our radar systems are somewhat limited.
“The radar systems provided by the US work with drone technology and satellite communications and so on, so that they offer a lot more than what we have, and that is needed at this point to achieve certain objectives,” said Sturge.
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