PM to PNM: Tell Trinidad and Tobago, how long was radar compromised?

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. - Photo by Angelo Marcelle

INSTEAD of attacking government for asking the United States for a temporary radar system to improve national security, the Prime Minister is challenging the Opposition People's National Movement (PNM) to explain to the country, just how long did it know Trinidad and Tobago's radar system had been compromised.

In a press release on the evening of December 3, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar claimed the "horrendous" murder and violent crime rates of the past decade – when the PNM was in government – were mainly driven by the local drug mafia and sanction-busting Venezuelan criminal collaborators.

She added that the PNM hierarchy appeared unable to extricate that party from the clutches of both criminal groups. Persad-Bissessar said the new radar system, at the ANR Robinson International Airport in Tobago, assists with detection of crude oil sanction-busting activities and traffickers conducting deliveries of illegal narcotics, firearms, ammunition and migrants into TT from Venezuela.

Another US military radar system is supposed to be installed in Trinidad.

The equipment, she said, enhances TT's surveillance capabilities and adds "a superior layer of protection that was previously unavailable."

A radar system installed by the US at the ANR Robinson International Airport in Crown Point. - Photo by Alva Viarruel

The PNM has been leading the chorus of condemnation for the secret installation of the radar in Tobago, amidst growing tensions between the US and Venezuela, with the former accusing the latter of running narco-terrorists and narco-traffickers to push illegal drugs into the United States.

Persad-Bissessar accused the then PNM government of allowing the local drug mafia to operate freely through unprotected borders for over a decade.

She claimed the then PNM government turned a blind eye to illegal drugs, arms and human trafficking, as well as to allegations of rampant paedophilia among some of the party's members.

"They did nothing tangible to improve national security while thousands of women were raped or sexually assaulted, over 5,000 people were murdered, and thousands more were victims of violent robberies," her release claimed.

Opposition and PNM political leader Pennelope Beckles. - Photo by Lincoln Holder

PM'S CHALLENGE

Persad-Bissessar, who is also the Siparia MP, then challenged the PNM to hold a press conference and clear the air on:

* How long the PNM knew the previous radar system was compromised.

* Make public, the names of local businessmen affiliated with the PNM and the local drug mafia, who have had illegal access to classified radar surveillance information.

* Explain why the radar system operated under the PNM government for years, did not detect oil tankers engaged in ship-to-ship transfer of sanctioned Venezuelan oil, within Trinidad's maritime waters, which led to the obtaining of documentation stating that Trinidad was the port of origin for this oil and not Venezuela.

* Explain whether the PNM’s anti-American narrative to try and remove the American-supplied radar system was really due to pressure or blackmail from the local drug mafia, and the previous PNM government's crude oil sanction-busting Venezuelan collaborators.

The Prime Minister said questions raised by the PNM regarding the newly-installed radar were a "desperate" effort to force government to disclose sensitive national security information in order to aid the PNM’s financiers, and its collaborators in Venezuela, to circumvent lawful surveillance.