Kinnesha George
THA Minority Leader Kelvon Morris has promised to remove the US military radar at the ANR Robinson International Airport at Crown Point if his party is elected into office in the January 12 Tobago House of Assembly (THA) elections.
At a political meeting on December 22 at the Pembroke bridge in the Glamorgan/ Belle Garden electoral district, Morris said: “We are going to move that radar as soon as the PNM becomes the next administration of Tobago.”
Approval for the radar was given by central government as national security is a Sixth Schedule item and not the responsibility of the THA.
The presence of the radar in Tobago has been controversial with Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar on November 26 claiming the US marines were in Tobago to help build a road near the airport.
A day later, she admitted a radar was being installed on the island to help combat drug trafficking. She said she initially tried to keep the radar’s presence a secret as it was a matter of national security.
The radar, built by American aerospace and defence technology company Northrop Grumman, is a G/ATOR system is a three-dimensional, medium/long-range multi-role radar designed to detect unmanned aerial systems, cruise missiles, air-breathing targets, rockets, artillery, and mortars.
Morris, the PNM candidate for Darrel Spring/ Whim, has criticised Chief Secretary Farley Augustine for his stance on the radar. Augustine has said he was assured by central government that the radar would not be used by the US to help attack any nation.
He later told a media house that if he had the power, he would not put the radar in Tobago or allow the US military access to the airport.
Morris said, “Farley has stopped speaking for the people of Tobago because you see those things that are coming up from Trinidad – the ham, the lamb, the TV, the hamper, Farley has sold his voice for UNC financing and therefore Farley no longer can represent us.”
He said the PNM will stand in defence of the people of Tobago.
“I’m saying to you all of Tobago, you need to get on board, you need to realise this is no longer about red, blue or black, this is no longer about code – this is now a matter of life versus death and when you go to vote, you now have to decide if you are going to preserve your life or if you are going to vote to allow people to have a radar that will lead potentially to your death.”
He played a clip of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar dismissing Augustine’s comments about hypothetically rejecting the radar.
In her response, Persad-Bissessar said, “Well, Farley does not have his way, does he? He is entitled to his opinion; I am not of that opinion.” Morris said, “You heard how easily the prime minister dismissed Farley…as if we don’t matter. I’m not here to defend Farley and perhaps I should because Farley cannot defend himself any more, but I am here to speak on behalf of the people of Tobago – take your radar and put it in Siparia.”
He also condemned TPP’s party member and ex-THA councillor Certica Williams-Orr who at a TPP meeting on December 2 in Bon Accord urged residents to embrace the presence of the radar noting that it is a “Christmas gift” to residents in that electoral district.
He begged to differ, noting that the radar is in fact “a gift of death.”
“That military radar is a military asset used in times of military conflict and war and therefore when you have two warring parties and one is about to go after the other, the first thing they do is try to take out all the various assets and that military radar serves as an eye, as an intelligence for the United States in times of conflict, and therefore the enemy of the United States, the first thing they would want to do is take out that radar, and where is that radar located – in poor sweet Tobago.
“The day we hear conflict break out between the United States and Venezuela, bet your bottom dollar, Tobago, the next thing you would hear is boom. Not ah we would be able to tell the next story because all ah we might just be …”
