Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

In light of height­ened re­gion­al ten­sions in­volv­ing the Unit­ed States and Venezuela, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has as­sured To­bag­o­ni­ans that the radar in­stal­la­tion at ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port is harm­less — though he ad­mit­ted he does not know key de­tails about its op­er­a­tion.

Au­gus­tine made the com­ments while ad­dress­ing a To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty meet­ing in Good­wood just be­fore mid­night on Tues­day, as ques­tions con­tin­ue to swirl around the radar and re­cent mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty at the is­land’s air­port.

He told sup­port­ers that To­ba­go is not in­volved in any war or mil­i­tary con­flict.

“We ain’t in no war. We ain’t sup­port­ing no war. To­ba­go is not go­ing to be used to fight war against any­body,” Au­gus­tine said.

At the same time, he ac­knowl­edged that he is still seek­ing clar­i­ty on how the radar sys­tem op­er­ates and what hap­pens to the in­for­ma­tion it gath­ers.

“The re­al ques­tions are: Who is col­lect­ing the da­ta, what are they do­ing with the da­ta, and how will the da­ta be used?” he said, adding that the me­dia should con­tin­ue press­ing those ques­tions.

Au­gus­tine said he vis­it­ed the air­port to view the in­stal­la­tion for him­self and de­scribed as­pects of the sys­tem as con­sis­tent with ex­ist­ing air­port op­er­a­tions.

“That has al­ways been a part of air­port op­er­a­tions,” he said, re­fer­ring to ge­ofenc­ing tech­nol­o­gy used to con­trol unau­tho­rised air­craft and drones.

While de­fend­ing the radar as non-threat­en­ing, Au­gus­tine stressed that To­ba­go should be con­sult­ed on mat­ters di­rect­ly af­fect­ing the is­land.

“If it con­cerns our 116 square miles, the peo­ple of To­ba­go should be con­sult­ed through a leader,” he said.

He re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that To­ba­go is align­ing it­self with any for­eign pow­er. “We’re not pick­ing any team in any race,” Au­gus­tine said.

He al­so urged res­i­dents not to let fear guide their judg­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the elec­tion sea­son. “You can nev­er make a strong judg­ment out of the emo­tion of fear,” he said.

Au­gus­tine not­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter has con­sti­tu­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty de­ci­sions but re­it­er­at­ed that To­ba­go should be con­sult­ed when such de­ci­sions have di­rect im­pli­ca­tions for the is­land.

More than two weeks ago, Guardian Me­dia asked Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar who re­ceives in­for­ma­tion from the radar. She de­ferred to the Min­is­ter of De­fence, say­ing some mil­i­tary per­son­nel have ac­cess to the da­ta. When asked whether US per­son­nel al­so have ac­cess, she again de­ferred, say­ing, “We’ll have to ask Min­is­ter Sturge.” She added that some mat­ters are too sen­si­tive to dis­close pub­licly.

Yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clined to com­ment on re­ports ques­tion­ing the radar’s ca­pa­bil­i­ty. Asked whether it can de­tect mar­itime ac­tiv­i­ty, she said, “I am not a radar ex­pert. I can on­ly say what I have been ad­vised.” Re­gard­ing Au­gus­tine’s ques­tions on who con­trols the da­ta, she again re­ferred queries to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel.

Mean­while, PNM To­ba­go leader An­cil Den­nis ac­cused Au­gus­tine of be­ing un­aware of ma­jor de­vel­op­ments af­fect­ing the is­land, in­clud­ing the radar in­stal­la­tion and US mil­i­tary use of lo­cal air­ports.

Ad­dress­ing a PNM meet­ing in Sou Sou Lands, Den­nis said: “We have a Chief Sec­re­tary who we have to now call Mr Don’t Know. The Chief Sec­re­tary doesn’t seem to know any­thing at all.”

Den­nis point­ed to the radar in­stal­la­tion and re­cent mil­i­tary air­craft ac­tiv­i­ty as ex­am­ples. “The pres­ence of a mil­i­tary air­craft in To­ba­go… he claimed again that he did not know,” Den­nis said, adding that Au­gus­tine on­ly be­came aware of air­port ac­cess for mil­i­tary pur­pos­es af­ter it was pub­licly an­nounced.

He in­sist­ed the radar is not a civil­ian in­stal­la­tion. “The radar is not a civil­ian as­set. The radar is not part of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The radar is, in fact, a mil­i­tary as­set to serve mil­i­tary pur­pos­es,” Den­nis said.

He said the PNM in­tends to mo­bilise To­bag­o­ni­ans to de­mand its re­moval. “We do not want any radar here,” Den­nis said.