Local security experts endorse security coalition move

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­[email protected]

One day af­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go joined a new­ly es­tab­lished mil­i­tary al­liance led by Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, known as the Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah says be­ing a sig­na­to­ry to this his­toric event will on­ly reap re­ward for our coun­try.

The agree­ment was rat­i­fied fol­low­ing Trump’s sign­ing of the Do­ral Char­ter at the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as sum­mit in Do­ral, Flori­da, on Sat­ur­day.

The agree­ment means that the Unit­ed States will train and mo­bilise part­ner na­tion mil­i­taries to achieve the most ef­fec­tive fight­ing force nec­es­sary to dis­man­tle car­tels and their abil­i­ty to ex­port vi­o­lence and pur­sue in­tel­li­gence through or­gan­ised in­tim­i­da­tion.

Shar­ing his views on the coali­tion, Heer­ah said the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit rep­re­sent­ed an im­por­tant step to­wards strength­en­ing re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion at a time when the West­ern Hemi­sphere is fac­ing in­creas­ing­ly com­plex se­cu­ri­ty, eco­nom­ic and geopo­lit­i­cal chal­lenges.

“For the Caribbean re­gion, the sum­mit sig­nals a col­lec­tive com­mit­ment among na­tions of the Amer­i­c­as to deep­en col­lab­o­ra­tion on transna­tion­al crime, bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, cy­ber threats and in­tel­li­gence shar­ing. As crim­i­nals net­works con­tin­ue to op­er­ate across bor­ders, par­tic­u­lar­ly in traf­fick­ing of arms, nar­cotics and hu­man smug­gling, such a frame­work pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for greater co­or­di­na­tion, ca­pac­i­ty build­ing and the align­ment of se­cu­ri­ty strate­gies across the re­gion,” Heer­ah said.

Heer­ah said T&T be­ing a sig­na­to­ry places the coun­try in a strate­gic po­si­tion to ben­e­fit from en­hanced part­ner­ships in re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty, eco­nom­ic re­silience and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

Geopo­lit­i­cal­ly, Heer­ah said it al­so sig­nals the Caribbean’s im­por­tance with­in hemi­spher­ic se­cu­ri­ty ar­chi­tec­ture and re­in­forces the need for bal­anced en­gage­ment with ma­jor part­ners while safe­guard­ing re­gion­al in­ter­ests.

“Ul­ti­mate­ly, the suc­cess of the ini­tia­tive will de­pend on how ef­fec­tive­ly these com­mit­ments trans­late in­to tan­gi­ble ac­tions that sup­port crime re­duc­tion, eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty and long-term sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment across the Caribbean.”

Law en­force­ment con­sul­tant and firearms ex­pert Paul Na­hous al­so shared a sim­i­lar view to Heer­ah.

Na­hous said T&T’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion would trans­late in­to a deep co­op­er­a­tion with re­gion­al part­ners through in­tel­li­gence shar­ing and mar­itime sur­veil­lance.

Joint ef­forts, Na­hous said, would lead to the dis­rup­tion of transna­tion­al crime net­works and car­tels.

“Our prox­im­i­ty to the ma­jor South Amer­i­can traf­fick­ing routes is cru­cial in stop­ping it. We are in a unique ge­o­graph­i­cal po­si­tion, where we need the ac­cess to that type of as­sis­tance. And we need to be in­stru­men­tal in co­or­di­nat­ing that too.”

Stat­ing that T&T is a trans­ship­ment point for drugs and guns, Na­hous said we have to com­bat the car­tels in a cer­tain way.

Na­hous could not stop em­pha­sis­ing the im­por­tance of this agree­ment for T&T’s se­cu­ri­ty on a re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el.

“There could al­so be greater co­or­di­na­tion be­tween our agen­cies, as well as re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners that have signed on. It is go­ing to strength­en the coun­try’s abil­i­ty to de­tect and in­ter­cept il­lic­it ship­ments. It will al­so ad­dress the wider se­cu­ri­ty threats linked to or­gan­ised crime that we are fac­ing lo­cal­ly. It will def­i­nite­ly re­in­force the ca­pa­bil­i­ty and ca­pac­i­ty of our own law en­force­ment and de­fence in­sti­tu­tions,” Na­hous point­ed out.

From all in­di­ca­tions, Na­hous said, the Gov­ern­ment has been tak­ing very se­ri­ous­ly the is­sue of crime and crim­i­nal net­works.