PM holds security talks with US SouthCom leadership

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar met with se­nior of­fi­cials of Unit­ed States South­ern Com­mand on Mon­day as part of ef­forts to strength­en co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States in the fight against nar­co-traf­fick­ing and re­gion­al crime.

In a state­ment is­sued fol­low­ing the meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the dis­cus­sions fo­cused on ex­pand­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion on na­tion­al and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty, in­clud­ing strate­gies to com­bat the il­le­gal drug trade.

The Prime Min­is­ter said she and mem­bers of her del­e­ga­tion at­tend­ed the meet­ing at the in­vi­ta­tion of the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment, cit­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s on­go­ing role in re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ef­forts.

The talks in­clud­ed dis­cus­sions with the Com­man­der of US South­Com, Fran­cis L. Dono­van, along with oth­er se­nior of­fi­cials in­clud­ing Lieu­tenant Gen­er­al Pet­tus, Am­bas­sador Stephanie Syptak-Ram­nath and Com­mand Se­nior En­list­ed Leader Sgt Ma­jor Rafael Ro­driguez.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the di­a­logue cen­tred on strength­en­ing co­op­er­a­tion to im­prove se­cu­ri­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go and across the wider Caribbean re­gion.

She not­ed that Dono­van ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s lead­er­ship role in re­gion­al ef­forts against the il­le­gal drug trade, say­ing the coun­try’s ac­tions have con­tributed to the broad­er fight against nar­cotics traf­fick­ing.

The Prime Min­is­ter said she used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­in­force her Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port for ex­pand­ing bi­lat­er­al part­ner­ships aimed at elim­i­nat­ing nar­co-traf­fick­ing and tack­ling crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Among the ar­eas iden­ti­fied for po­ten­tial col­lab­o­ra­tion were cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, foren­sic sci­ence and bal­lis­tic analy­sis to im­prove the ef­fec­tive­ness of law-en­force­ment op­er­a­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was en­cour­aged by South­Com’s com­mit­ment to ex­pand­ing co­op­er­a­tion with the coun­try and not­ed that sev­er­al projects were iden­ti­fied dur­ing the dis­cus­sions to sup­port na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives.

At the con­clu­sion of the meet­ing, the Prime Min­is­ter ex­tend­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to Dono­van to vis­it Trinidad and To­ba­go. She said the South­Com com­man­der in­di­cat­ed that such a vis­it could take place be­fore the end of the year.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the talks as part of her Gov­ern­ment’s broad­er ef­fort to se­cure in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships aimed at strength­en­ing the coun­try’s abil­i­ty to com­bat or­gan­ised crime and pro­tect cit­i­zens.

“This meet­ing forms part of our on­go­ing ef­fort to en­sure that Trinidad and To­ba­go has ac­cess to every pos­si­ble tool to con­front and de­feat the crim­i­nal el­e­ments that threat­en our peo­ple,” she said.

The fol­low­ing is the full state­ment:

"To­day my del­e­ga­tion & I met with the top lead­er­ship at US South Com­mand for a meet­ing to dis­cuss our con­tin­ued part­ner­ship be­tween the US and T&T in the sphere of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty & the fight against nar­co-traf­fick­ing.

My team and I at­tend­ed to­day's meet­ing based on an in­vi­ta­tion from the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment giv­en our strong sup­port, de­ter­mined ac­tion and dy­nam­ic part­ner­ship to elim­i­nate the il­le­gal drug trade. 

It was a plea­sure to un­der­take pro­duc­tive and fruit­ful di­a­logue with Gen­er­al Fran­cis L. Dono­van Com­man­der, Unit­ed States South­ern Com­mand, Lieu­tenant Gen­er­al Pet­tus Deputy Com­man­der, Am­bas­sador Stephanie Syptak-Ram­nath For­eign Pol­i­cy Ad­vi­sor, Sgt. Maj. Rafael Ro­driguez Com­mand Se­nior En­list­ed Leader and oth­er mem­bers of the top Lead­er­ship of the South Com­mand.

My de­lib­er­a­tions were fo­cused on strength­en­ing cor­po­ra­tion to en­sure a safer and more se­cure Trinidad and To­ba­go at every lev­el. 

I was pleased that Gen­er­al Fran­cis L. Dono­van

ex­pressed grat­i­tude for our Lead­er­ship in the re­gion as our ef­forts have sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact­ed the war on the il­le­gal drug trade.

Based on this I re­in­forced my sup­port for the con­tin­ued and ex­pand­ed part­ner­ships to fight Nar­co traf­fick­ing as my main goal is to en­sure a to­tal erad­i­ca­tion of this plague that has brought grave de­struc­tion to T&T. 

I made it clear at to­day's meet­ing that my great­est pri­or­i­ty was to en­sure the pro­tec­tion of my cit­i­zens as I called for fur­ther part­ner­ships/tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion on Cy­ber se­cu­ri­ty, foren­sics and bal­lis­tic to en­sure an ef­fec­tive fight against crim­i­nal el­e­ments in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

I am heart­ened not on­ly by the com­mit­ment of South­ern Com­mand's com­mit­ment to broad­en­ing the scope of work to en­sure a safer re­gion but the fact that sev­er­al spe­cif­ic projects were iden­ti­fied for im­ple­men­ta­tion to sup­port Trinidad and To­ba­go's se­cu­ri­ty. 

As my team end­ed to­day's meet­ing we ex­tend­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to Gen­er­al Fran­cis L. Dono­van to vis­it T&T which he said would be a pos­si­bil­i­ty be­fore years end. 

To­day's meet­ing was part of my un­wa­ver­ing fight to en­sure all the tools pos­si­ble to my gov­ern­ment to crush the crim­i­nal el­e­ments which threat­en our cit­i­zens."