The Maritime Operations and Planning Course got under way, yesterday. Participants and instructors alongside (third from left) Captain Errington Shurland, Executive Director of the Regional Security System (RSS); Mrs. Silvia Kofler, Chargé d’Affaires of the Delegation of the European Union to Barbados, Eastern Caribbean States, OECS and CARIFORUM; and Commander Aquinas Clarke, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Barbados Defence Force (BDF).
The Regional Security System (RSS) has long identified transnational criminality and its spill over effects as a priority area.
Executive Director, Captain Errington Shurland, said that with the acceptance of transnational crime as a significant security threat, and the documented correlation between reduced levels
of criminal activity and development, it is imperative that the RSS sub-region strives to tackle the rising tide of transnational criminality.
He was at the time addressing the opening of the Maritime Operations and Planning Course, held at the HMBS Pelican, yesterday. The course is one of the first under the 10th European Development Fund (EDF) Project.
Captain Shurland highlighted that the project aims to enhance the capabilities of law enforcement and border security personnel, augment existing projects in correctional facilities that rehabilitate drug offenders and provide them with alternative skills, as well as to improve public awareness regarding key law enforcement issues such as drug enforcement and human rights issues in the RSS Member States.
“Maritime Operations Planning in the current and future security environment is critical to mounting and executing successful operations in the Maritime Domain… The majority of our threats in the sub-region come via the sea. It is therefore important that you – the present and future operations room managers and coast guard commanders are suitably equipped with the tools and skills needed to effectively and efficiently co-ordinate and oversee the successful planning and execution of operations in our areas of responsibility,” he told representatives from the seven RSS Member States.
The RSS Executive Director also revealed that over the next three weeks participants will be exposed to a number of concepts and tactics that will broaden their horizons and create a path that will enable them to think differently about what they are required to do to achieve the ultimate objective, “to stem the illegal activity that threatens our borders and have the potential to adversely affect the socio-economic, socio-cultural and political activities that provide for good governance of our respective countries and disrupt the lives of our people in particular the youth in our countries”.
Silvia Kofler, Chargé d’ Affaires Delegation of the European Union to Barbados, Eastern Caribbean States, OECS and CARIFORUM shared that the 10th EDF already placed considerable emphasis on security with projects worth approximately EUR$18 million – which has permitted them to establish solid partnerships with multiple sectors of the region, including IMPACS, the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) and the RSS.
In fact, she disclosed that under the 11th EDF, the EU has strengthened this priority area of support by earmarking EUR$44 million for crime and security-related programmes.
“We believe in the value of contributing our best resources and capabilities to alliances and partnerships and to enable others with fewer resources to make their contributions as partners and assume responsibility in their own regions.
“We believe that only willingness to analyse and make decisions in a common approach can achieve what in a globalised world no nation – whatever its size – can successfully and permanently do; resolve conflicts or manage threats on its own,” Kofler said. (TL)