KINGSTON, Jamaica – (JIS) Collaboration on security matters among Caribbean states is of utmost importance to regional security as the nature of threats today are either trans-national or have trans-national links.
Deputy Chief of Defence Staff in the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), Colonel Anthony Anderson expressed this view Tuesday (June 3), during a JIS News interview at the third annual Conference on Caribbean Security and Strategy, which is being held at the Grand Lido Hotel, in Negril, Westmoreland, from June 2 to 6.
“It’s desirable (and) it is necessary, and I really do not think that any state within the region can begin to seriously consider its own security, without considering the issues in neighbouring states. So it is really the collective security, and the inter-agency cooperation that is going to really deal with the threats as we see them unfolding now,” he stated.
Colonel Anderson, who served as a regional security administrator in 2007, when he held the position of Regional Operations Commander for Security during Cricket World Cup 2007, addressed the conference on the topic of Regional Security Challenges.
Referring to some of the security measures implemented specifically for Cricket World Cup 2007, Colonel Anderson described them as having enhanced the security of the region. He emphasized that even though the Cricket World Cup 2007 tournament is an event of the past, the security of the region remains an important issue of great concern.
Colonel Anderson described as “a very good thing”, the fact that some of the security systems which were implemented during the tournament are still being maintained today.
“There were a significant number of initiatives that took place over that period, some of them were sunset in nature, in that after Cricket World Cup they disappeared, but a number of other ones have been enacted in perpetuity,” he explained.
He said that some of the security initiatives that were implemented over the period are still being discussed at various levels by Caribbean governments, with a view towards continued heightened regional security. Approximately 40 persons representing five countries and 16 organizations across the region are attending the conference.
