Only six weeks after United States Secretary of Defense Dr Robert Gates visited Barbados on April 16 to launch the ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative,’ US Attorney General Eric Holder convened a one-day ‘Dialogue’ in Washington, DC on May 27 to launch the ‘Caribbean-United States Security Cooperation Initiative.’
Last month’s Inaugural Caribbean-United States Security Cooperation Dialogue was co-chaired by US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela and current Chairman of the Caricom Council for National Security and Law Enforcement Dr Errol Cort, who is the Minister of National Security of Antigua and Barbuda. The Dialogue, if nothing else, featured lots of long addresses.
Eric Holder, describing the forum as a “discussion,” spoke of securing borders, eliminating gangs and violence, curbing drug-trafficking, reducing recidivism, fighting terrorism and much more. Dr Errol Cort, apparently reading word-for-word from the Caricom security textbook, emphasized the need for a management structure for crime and security which included the familiar Council for National Security and Law Enforcement; Security Policy Advisory Committee; Implementation Agency for Crime and Security; and Standing Committees of Operational Heads including Commissioners of Police, Military Chiefs, Chiefs of Immigration and Comptrollers of Customs.
Ms Glenda Morean-Phillips of Trinidad and Tobago, like Dr Cort, iterated the need for Caricom states to collectively operationalise the existing Regional Framework for the Management of Crime and Security that was tested and proven to be effective at the 2007 Cricket World Cup Tournament. Thompson ‘Tommy’ Turnquest of the Bahamas also stuck to the Caricom script, emphasizing the need for the community to develop its crime and security architecture, particularly the Caricom Implementation Agency for Crime and Security and its organs – the Regional Intelligence Fusion Centre and the Joint Regional Communications Centre.
Jamaica’s Dwight Nelson lamented the plight of young people who are “most vulnerable and living at the margins of our society.” The forum, he thought, “should be particularly concerned with those who are vulnerable to involvement in crime and violence. Guyana’s Clement Rohee declared nobly that “Security and justice are not only key values in all societies, they are also among the major expectations that citizens require of their governments. Citizens wish to live in a society that is peaceful; in a society where their rights are respected; in a society where their security is assured. Rohee concluded correctly that “At present, citizen security and the public fear of crime are among the gravest concerns of the people of our various communities.”
It fell to Barbados’s Freundel Stuart to explain that the Caribbean-United States Security Cooperation Initiative was the product of a series of meetings between the Caricom Council for National Security and Law Enforcement and a delegation from the United States “to craft a joint regional security strategy and Plan of Action. Caribbean states, therefore, seemed to have adopted a common approach to regional security cooperation. What is unclear is whether the two US initiatives launched by Dr Gates and Mr Holder, respectively, are the same or separate and, if so, is it in the Caribbean Community’s interest for them to be?
Dr Gates’s April meeting was aimed only at the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean states and Barbados. Mr Holder’s May meeting, on the other hand, was aimed at a real Caricom team. The resulting Declaration of Principles, Joint Caribbean-US Framework for Security Cooperation Engagement and Caribbean-US Plan of Action on Security Cooperation seem to be aimed at the entire community not a part of it.
Neither the United States nor Caricom states seems to think it necessary to explain to low-level citizens the purpose of two separate high-level meetings, notwithstanding their wordy dialogue and well-crafted declaration.
