ST. LUCIA – St. Lucia is sure to have its security strategy for World Cup Cricket 2007 strengthened, as the Secretariat of the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism ended a one-week course for port personnel on the island today.
As the March 11th start-up of the 3rd largest sporting event draws ever closer, discussions on the issue of security have escalated with views being expressed of an over the top security plan, that may not be needed for the Caribbean region, widely regarded as a safe destination.
However this notion has been dismissed by officials of the US Department of Homeland Security, who were on island to facilitate the security training. They say international events of this nature always do attract trouble makers, and every effort should be made to keep them out.
“Sure the Caribbean doesn’t seem to be a target at this point in time, but all of the people that are coming to watch this sporting event are coming from countries that have been targets; in other words, the people themselves are targets. So if you have a large population of people, who have come from one particular country to watch the events, well their countries have been targets, and if you have several thousands of people here, that’s a large target also,” said International Training Advisor with the US Department of Homeland Security Patrick Shea.
The nine Caribbean states hosting the mega event have collectively and individually been tightening security measures to ensure the safe execution of the World Cup.
One of the measures instituted is that of a Single Domestic Space, which for the period of the World Cup, requires citizens of certain countries to obtain a CARICOM Visa in order to travel to Caribbean host venues.
“I think the special visa will certainly help to track those elements that are in need of tracking.
Generally speaking, in the Eastern Caribbean, we do not require visas from as many countries as say Jamaica and Guyana, but what is being done is to have a common list of countries that will require visas and on that list will include countries, that some will say, are countries where certain terrorist elements operate,” said Organization of American States Representative to St. Lucia, Paul Spencer.
Countries exempted from the visa include member states of the Caribbean Community-with the exception of Haiti, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Spain, South Africa, Kingdom of the Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States of America, and the dependent territories of the countries listed.
