Minister of Defence, Wayne Sturge, has confirmed that the United States-provided radar system in Tobago will remain in operation indefinitely.
Speaking at Thursday’s Post Cabinet Media Briefing, he noted that the advanced surveillance technology is now critical to Trinidad and Tobago’s ability to detect and intercept narcotics and weapons shipments.
“We would have the use of the radar for the foreseeable future. I can’t give a definitive timeline. And the reason why we need it, we already have a radar centre, but our radar systems are somewhat limited. The radar systems provided by the US, they work with drone technology and satellite communications and so on, so that it offers a lot more than what we have. And that is needed at this point in time to achieve certain objectives because, as you would appreciate, the fleet, the Coast Guard’s fleet is not what it should be.”
Responding to reporters, the Minister also sought to explain that disclosing numbers or locations of US military personnel would compromise operational security and benefit narco-traffickers.
“We have been at war since the 90s with narco-traffickers. We have been, and you’ve seen the effects of that on this country. You have. And we have not been doing too well in terms of stemming the flow of drugs and guns into this country. And the thing is, most of our murders in this country are drug-related, gang-related, and the weapon of choice, firearms. And what they are fighting over, they are fighting basically over drug turf. So if we’ve 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.”
Minister Sturge also confirmed that Government is accelerating efforts to rebuild and modernise the Coast Guard’s patrol capacity, with several vessels already repaired and back in service and new high-speed interceptors now in the acquisition pipeline.
“A number of them have already been repaired and up and running, and we are in the process of acquiring a few more. Not the Damen type or the Austal type, not the big ones. Because the reality is, if you look at what the narco-traffickers use, they use, I think, 30 foot or 20 or 30 foot speedboats with four outboard engines and they tend to outrun some of the bigger vessels. So we are in the process of looking at getting equipment that can match that”