Baseless wrangle over American base | Editorial

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IT is passing strange that both Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar are acting as though an American base in Trinidad is a live political issue.

In 2013, when then-Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar signed the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which had been ratified since 2007, her office issued a press release stating, “This SOFA cannot be the basis for the establishment of an American military base…..no provisions are made or contemplated by the grant of facilities and areas to be utilised by the US military on the territory of Trinidad and Tobago.”

Back then, Mrs Persad-Bissessar was responding to an exclusive report in this newspaper based on questions addressed to then-US Vice President Joe Biden, who was to visit the country in May 2013. Last week Thursday, berating the Newsday newspaper for a story headlined “US can put Troops in TT”, Prime Minister Rowley said the SOFA, signed by the PNM Government on December 10, does not allow the US to deploy military forces here in the event of any conflict in Venezuela.

Dr Rowley could have settled the issue by being transparent and releasing the SOFA agreement to the public. Instead, in a Facebook post last Friday, he extended his bellicose response by attacking the Opposition Leader, pointing out that she had also signed the SOFA and “she didn’t publish it then”.

But, if the Opposition Leader was wrong to be secretive then, Dr Rowley is only following her wrong example now. The key issue is whether the SOFA ensures that T&T can rely on the US if placed in peril by another country. Our 2013 news report noted that, “Many political observers believe the US wanted a SOFA with this country because of its proximity to Venezuela. Venezuela is increasingly becoming a transshipment point for illegal drugs to get to the Caribbean and Central America. There is not only the issue of drug-trafficking, but there are also terrorism concerns. Venezuela’s relations with Iran are a source of concern for the United States.”

Those issues have not changed in the past 11 years; if anything, they are more pressing now. Yet, by pretending that an agreement to deploy American troops is the same as setting up a base, both Dr Rowley and Mrs Persad-Bissessar are pandering to an issue that is no longer relevant.

After all, it is 65 years since PNM founder Dr Eric Williams delivered his famous speech, “From Slavery to Chaguaramas”, at a public meeting in Arima. Back then, the American base at Chaguaramas, granted in 1941 by the British authorities with a 99-year lease, had political resonance in a country throwing off colonialism. Yet even then, as noted by CLR James in The Black Jacobins, Trinidadians did not have “the slighted trace of anti-American feeling”.

Since then, two generations have grown up. Ordinary citizens today are more concerned about their personal security than two political leaders, both over 70 years old, wrangling over a matter settled in the last century.

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Baseless wrangle over American base | Editorial

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