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Amid mount­ing on­line claims that U.S. mil­i­tary air­craft and drones have been fly­ing near or with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s air­space on sur­veil­lance mis­sions tied to Venezuela, the for­mer Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al of Civ­il Avi­a­tion is urg­ing calm, clar­i­ty, and an end to fear-dri­ven spec­u­la­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Dr Lutch­me­di­al em­pha­sised that there is no cred­i­ble ev­i­dence to sug­gest that U.S. mil­i­tary air­craft have en­tered the coun­try’s sov­er­eign air­space with­out per­mis­sion, and that such an act would con­sti­tute a vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go, like 193 oth­er coun­tries in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States, is a sig­na­to­ry to the Chica­go Con­ven­tion,” Lutch­me­di­al ex­plained. “Ar­ti­cle 1 of that Con­ven­tion makes it ab­solute­ly clear that every state has com­plete sov­er­eign­ty over the air­space above its land and ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters. No mil­i­tary air­craft of any for­eign state can en­ter our air­space with­out pri­or au­tho­ri­sa­tion through diplo­mat­ic chan­nels.”