Threats to the environment make hemispheric cooperation more necessary, according to Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee.
Speaking on Sunday at the opening of the just-concluded 11th Conference of Defence Ministers of the Americas (CDMA), Rohee said Guyana supports the call to modernise and adapt the Inter-American Defence System to make it more relevant to the multi-dimensional challenges facing the nations individually and collectively.
He further added that any discussion of security in the hemisphere would be deficient without a focus on the special security threats faced by small islands and low coastal Caribbean states.
“As a consequence, nowhere is the need for such hemispheric cooperation more necessary than in the threats related to environment[al] protection,” he said. “We in Guyana not only recognise the threat posed by environmental degradation but are also greatly concerned with those posed by climate change,” he added.
As a result, Rohee said that Guyana was in favour of the Five Thematic Axes of the conference as well as the proposed mechanisms aimed at improving collaboration and coordination of efforts in the areas of hemispheric defence and security.
Among the specific proposals he cited is the involvement of the defence sector in environmental protection. Other proposals that Guyana is behind are the coordination of military conferences on defence issues, mechanisms to collaborate on military health systems, and the coordination of efforts in search and rescue.
Rohee said too that Guyana was supportive of the call by Chile for the proposed military conferences, if agreed upon, to precede future CDMA meetings.
Rohee noted that the challenges faced by the hemisphere—including narcotics, arms and human trafficking; climate change; illegal mining and logging and the resultant environmental degradation; natural disasters; health care; terrorism and other poverty related issues—all serve to extend the remit of the region’s defence sector.
Rohee also urged fellow ministers to consider how the hemisphere could take advantage of conditions of peace and security in the absence of war to advance the national and human security interests of the countries in our hemisphere.
He said it is important for defence ministers to recognise and re-affirm that peace and security cannot exist in the absence of a deepening of democracy and the firm respect for the rule of law throughout our hemisphere.
He added that Guyana, as an active Member of UNASUR, fully supports and upholds the decisions to ensure that the hemisphere remains a zone of peace and hemispheric cooperation.
Meanwhile, he said too that Guyana supports the view expressed by Brazil that the CDMA must adopt the necessary flexibility to encourage all countries in the hemisphere with an interest in being part of CDMA to join the forum for the exchange of each other’s views and experiences.
