DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal is call­ing for an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to how the T&T Coast Guard lost a for­eign ves­sel it was tow­ing with five bod­ies on board over the week­end.

Ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress' Mon­day Night Re­port at the Ch­agua­nas South Sec­ondary School, Mooni­lal ex­pressed be­wil­der­ment over the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard's (TTCG) han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion. He ref­er­enced a TTCG state­ment in­di­cat­ing that the small fish­ing ves­sel was ini­tial­ly spot­ted by work­ers on the Cas­sia oil rig.

"The Coast Guard put out one of the most dis­gust­ing, I can't de­scribe, but they put out a press re­lease on the week­end. They say 'thank you' to the per­son and the peo­ple who give them the in­for­ma­tion on the boat, but if all yuh see it again, call them," he joked as the au­di­ence laughed.

In a state­ment, the TTCG said it first re­ceived a re­port on the ves­sel at 2.22 pm on Sat­ur­day. A pa­trol boat was dis­patched and with help from near­by ves­sels, of­fi­cers lo­cat­ed the de­te­ri­o­rat­ed pirogue. It said at 12.45 am, the Coast Guard crew suc­cess­ful­ly at­tached a tow­line and be­gan trans­port­ing the ves­sel to­ward main­land Trinidad. How­ev­er, at 4 am, the tow­line sep­a­rat­ed in rough seas east of Ma­yaro and the ves­sel drift­ed out of sight and is be­lieved to have sunk.

Mooni­lal, the UNC shad­ow na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, re­marked, "This would have been fun­ny, had it not been trag­ic. On­ly in Trinidad un­der (Stu­art) Young and (Fitzger­ald) Hinds, the Coast Guard could tie a boat and then lose it."

Young, the cur­rent En­er­gy Min­is­ter who tipped to be­come prime min­is­ter on Dr Kei­th Row­ley's res­ig­na­tion, was a for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter.

Mooni­lal con­tin­ued, "What ap­pears to be a small fish­ing ves­sel may have sur­vived cross­ing the At­lantic Ocean, the kala pani. It sur­vived like the Fa­tel Raza­ck and come here. Yuh know the Coast Guard find it be­cause some­body tell them it was there. They hook it up with a tow line and then loss it."

Mooni­lal fur­ther ques­tioned the ac­tiv­i­ties of the TTCG of­fi­cers dur­ing the in­ci­dent.

"The Coast Guard ves­sel had 16 men on board. So, what the 16 of them gone to do? To play all fours down­stairs? And then some­body come up­stairs and say, 'aye, way de boat gone?'"

He crit­i­cised the cur­rent state of the TTCG, stat­ing, "That is the Coast Guard un­der Hinds and Stu­art Young. They are ill-equipped, with­out re­sources."

He warned that the dis­cov­ery could in­di­cate in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, sug­gest­ing that agen­cies like the US Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion, In­ter­pol and the FBI might take in­ter­est due to the hu­man re­mains found off Trinidad and To­ba­go's coast.

"This is the on­ly coun­try that the Coast Guard will lose a boat with dead peo­ple. You could imag­ine if it was liv­ing peo­ple?"

He con­clud­ed by call­ing for a com­pre­hen­sive in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the ves­sel's dis­ap­pear­ance, in­volv­ing both lo­cal po­lice and in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies.

"The men or the women on that boat, who, wher­ev­er they are, they came from some­where. They may or may not have been in­volved in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties."