Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is be­ing called a “cow­ard” and “liar” by his po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents, who are dis­miss­ing his claims that he would per­son­al­ly de­stroy the radar in To­ba­go if it were used by the Unit­ed States to at­tack Venezuela.

Au­gus­tine, in an in­ter­view with To­ba­go Chan­nel 5 on Wednes­day, said he would “mash up” the radar if it threat­ened To­ba­go’s “neu­tral” stance in the on­go­ing ten­sion be­tween the US and Venezuela. But Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis dis­missed the re­mark as mere “speed talk”.

“The Chief Sec­re­tary has once again demon­strat­ed to the peo­ple of To­ba­go that he’s a cow­ard; he’s not will­ing to speak up for them, and he’s not will­ing to put the in­ter­ests of To­bag­o­ni­ans first. And af­ter hid­ing be­hind this is­sue, say­ing very in­ac­cu­rate­ly and un­for­tu­nate­ly that the radar is not hav­ing an im­pact on our tourism sec­tor, say­ing as well that the radar does not neg­a­tive­ly af­fect the safe­ty of the peo­ple of To­ba­go, he’s now com­ing to say that he will mash up the radar him­self,” Den­nis told Guardian Me­dia.

Den­nis said he does not want Au­gus­tine to “mash up” the radar but rec­om­mend­ed an­oth­er course of ac­tion.

“We want him to tell Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar where she should have put the radar in the first place. Some­where in Trinidad, be­cause we clear­ly don’t want it in To­ba­go.”

He added, “I know that this radar sit­u­a­tion im­pacts on the gen­er­al safe­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, but as a leader in To­ba­go, I have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to speak for the peo­ple of To­ba­go, and we are say­ing we don’t want it here.”

The To­ba­go Coun­cil Leader said Au­gus­tine’s in­sis­tence that he has To­ba­go in a neu­tral space is “laugh­able”.

“He (Au­gus­tine) even de­fend­ed the Prime Min­is­ter when she lied to the peo­ple of To­ba­go and the peo­ple of this coun­try when she said that it was a road be­ing con­struct­ed. So he has lost every sense of dig­ni­ty, he has lost his way, and he’s now pre­pared to be a mu­mu, as we like to say in To­ba­go.”

Mean­while, the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance’s (IDA) Dr Denise Tsoifatt-An­gus said it was time the Chief Sec­re­tary stopped “fool­ing” and telling “lies” to To­bag­o­ni­ans.

The IDA leader said Au­gus­tine him­self was well aware that he has no au­thor­i­ty to re­move the radar.

She added that the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) ad­min­is­tra­tion did not put the is­land in a po­si­tion of neu­tral­i­ty.

“To­ba­go was not kept out of it. In fact, To­ba­go was dragged in­to the fore­front of the fight. The Chief Sec­re­tary is very disin­gen­u­ous be­cause his first state­ments on the con­flict with Venezuela came weeks af­ter our cries to de­clare To­ba­go as a neu­tral space,” Dr Tsoifatt-An­gus said.

“His first ut­ter­ances were to say that he sup­ports what­ev­er the Prime Min­is­ter is say­ing, and back then she was say­ing, ‘Kill them vi­o­lent­ly,’ and he sup­port­ed that.”

She said if the IDA has con­trol of the THA, the par­ty will be writ­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tions for ad­vice on chart­ing a way for­ward for To­ba­go in the midst of on­go­ing geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions.