PM praises radar assistance in drug bust

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar - Photo by Angelo Marcelle

PRIME Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar continued to defend the installation of a US military radar at ANR International Robinson Airport in Tobago, by endorsing Commissioner of Police Allister Guevarro's crediting of the radar's use in helping police seize $171 million marijuana in an unmanned boat in the Caroni Swamp.

She made her statement when she addressed a Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) awards ceremony at Government Campus Plaza, Port of Spain on December 11.

Persad-Bissessar said, "Using the radar that we installed in Tobago. We were able today to drug bust $171 million worth of illegal drugs in TT."

In a subsequent Facebook post on December 12, Persad-Bissessar, who is also National Security Council chair, said, "Thanks to our new radar system, law enforcement intercepted $171 million in illegal narcotics- a significant blow to criminal networks."

On December 11, she also disclosed, "Today I met with some officials from the US Embassy this evening before I came. That's not in my script but I can share it."

Persad-Bissessar did not elaborate on this comment during her speech.

In her subsequent Facebook post on December 12, Persad-Bissessar's only addition to that comment was, "I also met with officials from the US Embassy, where we discussed our continued co-operation in the fight against crime."

In the US government's National Security Strategy 2025 document which was published by the White House in November and signed by US President Donald Trump, the US reiterated its vision for the Western Hemisphere as one "whose governments co-operate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organisations."

The US said its goals for the hemisphere are to enlist and expand.

"We will enlist established friends in the hemisphere to control migration, stop drug flows, and strengthen stability and security on land and sea. "We will expand by cultivating and strengthening new partners while bolstering our own nation’s appeal as the hemisphere’s economic and security partner of choice."

In her address on December 11, Persad-Bissessar repeated the view she held from her 2010-2015 stint as prime minister about education being the key for a better quality of life." To this comment, she added, "not through the narcotics and the drug running and the gun running."

In August, the US approached Grenada for permission to use the Maurice Bishop International Airport to house military radar that could monitor both commercial and military flights in the southern Caribbean.

Grenadian Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell has said his government is working with an undisclosed deadline from the US but will not be hurried into deciding on such an important issue.

When asked if US troops were in TT before a sitting of the House of Representatives on November 26, Persad-Bissessar said, "They are helping us with something to do at the (ANR Robinson International) airport."

She added their presence had something to do with a roadway near the airport."

Subsequently after a laptop distribution ceremony at the Penal Secondary School on November 27, Persad-Bissessar first disclosed the establishment of a radar at the airport by US Marines.

"The plan there is the runway and a radar."

Persad-Bissessar said, "They will help us to improve our surveillance and intelligence we gather...the narco traffickers in our waters and outside our waters."

The radar has subsequently been identified as a AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) system with capabilities that go beyond the objectives which Persad-Bissessar said it could be used for.

The 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.

Persad-Bissessar has publicly supported the US military deployment in the Southern Caribbean since it began in August with with three guided missile destroyers (USS Gravely, Jason Dunham and Sampson).

The US force in the region has since grown to include the nuclear attack submarine USS Newport News, amphibious assault vessels, special forces command vessels, the 22nd US Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford and its strike group. Members of the MEU were in TT last month for joint military exercises with members of the TT Defence Force (TTDF).

Persad-Bissessar has also publicly supported the Trump administration's position the deployment is an anti-narcotic exercise and US military strikes on alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean which several countries have described as extrajudicial killings.

In August, Persad-Bissessar said TT was prepared to allow US troops to operate on its territory if Venezuela made any incursion into Guyana and the US made a formal request to government under the SOFA (Status of Forces) agreement that was signed with the US in December 2024 under the former PNM administration.

The SOFA allows bilateral military co-operation between TT and US.Venezuela and Guyana have had an ongoing dispute over the Essequibo border region between them for decades.