ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, CMC – Former Grenadian Prime Minister, Tillman Thomas, said Friday he believes that the Dickon Mitchell administration will make the “right decision” as it contemplates a request from the United States to temporarily install a radar at the Maurice Bishop International Airport (MBIA) and the deployment of US military assets on or near the island.
“I really feel we should be a zone of peace in the region and negotiate, if possible. The government should negotiate with them,” Thomas said.
Tillman Thomas (File Photo)
“I don’t think it should be an outright no; there might be some areas where they could compromise on something,” said Thomas, who served as head of a National Democratic Congress (NDC) government from 2008 to 2013.
Thomas acknowledged that while he does not have “all the facts” and “I do not know exactly what the request is, I think the government in its wisdom will reach the right decision.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said he welcomed the ongoing “raging” public debate regarding the US request, saying that his administration has not yet made a decision on the matter and that he would make a statement to the nation in due course.
“Nothing much has changed since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated that we were considering the request. We are still doing so. It is a technical matter and requires a lot of technical people to provide us with guidance on what it is we are being asked to accommodate,” Mitchell said during his “DM with the PM” program on social media and other platforms on Tuesday night.
On Thursday, Grenadians took to the streets in a peaceful protest, urging the government to block the US request.
“We are here demanding that our region be maintained as a zone of peace,” former foreign affairs minister Peter David told the “Peace March” organized by the Grenada Coalition Zone of Peace and Concerned Citizens.
David, an independent legislator, told the protest march, “We are not here to fight down anybody…we say Grenada first, the Caribbean first.
“We are here fighting to maintain peace. I have stated my position quite clearly. But we need you—the members of the community, the churches, the trade unions, the political organizations, all organizations—to come together on this issue.
“This is not a partisan issue, this is an issue of sovereignty and integrity for the people of Grenada,” he said, adding, “We all must be united on this.”
The Donald Trump administration has been building up a military presence off the coast of the South American country, allegedly as part of its fight against the illegal shipment of drugs to the United States. Washington has confirmed that it has bombed several vessels, killing all but two people, in recent times as it puts its policy into action.
Last weekend, the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat said that Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders had met earlier this month to discuss several issues on the regional agenda, including the security build-up in parts of the Caribbean and its potential impact on member states.
It said that the government of Trinidad and Tobago did not endorse the position at that meeting.
Thomas is one of 10 former Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders who have reiterated the need for the Caribbean to be maintained as a zone of peace, saying that they are impelled to urge a pull back from military build up to avoid “any dimunition of peace, stability and development within our regional space that has the potential to pull the region into conflicts which are not of our making”.
The leaders, including the former Jamaica prime ministers, P.J. Patterson and Bruce Golding, as well as former Guyana president Donald Ramotar, said in a joint statement issued on Thursday night, that when Caribbean Leaders had gathered at Chaguaramas in 1972, with the then Trinidad and Tobago prime minister Dr. Eric Williams as the chairman, “it was accepted that peace was a dominant factor in shaping the social and political framework for Caribbean development.
“As a result, the ‘zone of peace’ has been codified and become a cornerstone in the architecture of our Caribbean sovereignty and the axis for our relationship with the countries of our Hemisphere, Europe, and the world at large.”
The other former leaders who have signed the statement are Baldwin Spencer of Antigua and Barbuda, Said Musa and Dean Barrow of Belize, and Freundel Stuart of Barbados.
and then 