The news is reassuring coming out of Port-of-Spain that the Trinidad and Tobago government is collaborating with Barbados in a joint venture to have air patrols in the Eastern Caribbean. According to the reports, this area is a more vulnerable one in the region.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister, Patrick Manning, made the announcement last week at the opening session of the two-day inaugural Technical Meeting of Military Commanders in Port-of-Spain. Trinidad and Tobago owns two C26 aircraft, which will be used for the patrol. Barbados also owns two aircraft.
Both nations have collaborated and are now in a position to begin a series of air patrols in the Eastern Caribbean, Manning told the media last week. There will be a minimum of two patrols per day, “so that we have complete control, complete oversight of what is taking place in the maritime boundaries of the Eastern Caribbean,” Manning said. He noted that the patrols will allow for monitoring of the area “so that we can see what is there and we can take the appropriate steps to protect the area.”
He added that the goal is to have this process in place at the top of 2009. Each aircraft will have radar and infrared equipment. A sweep of the area will transmit data in real time to command centres for appropriate decision-making, he said.
The fight against crime at the regional level is also continuing in other areas, with Manning indicating that Caricom was now in a position to sign two treaties at the next Head of Governments Meeting. This is scheduled to take place in Antigua next month. Here regional leaders will sign the Common Arrest Warrant Treaty which will allow for the extradition of persons between territories without having recourse to the cumbersome extradition arrangements now in place. The second one is a Maritime and Airspace Agreement that allows one country to patrol the maritime space of another.
Participants at the conference last week included military commanders from Caricom member states, as well as military representatives from the US, Canada, France, the UK, and the Netherlands.
For us living abroad but with ties at home in countries such as Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Jamaica, this development at the regional level is reassuring – it paints a picture of individual governmental action as well as regional cooperation to deal with the distressing growth of crime in the Caribbean. That Trinidad and Tobago is taking the initiative through leadership and resources is also notable, given the horrific escalation in crime across the region, particularly noted in the statistics that show murder rates that are pushing us daily and deeper into anxiety. For Trinidad and Tobago, by mid-June the murder rate stood at 224. At the present rate, a murder is committed every 17 hours and 30 minutes, a trend that could put this country into record territory by the end of the year.
The government of Trinidad and Tobago, along with leaders throughout the Caribbean, should keep these figures in mind as they work together to rid their nations of this growing epidemic.
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As we approach the brink of what is shaping into a global food crisis, the Guyana government should begin paying attention to the tremendous potential this nation has to not only feed itself, but the rest of the Caribbean, and we who live abroad. The capacity exists to do so many times over – it must now be guided with a view to meeting growing demands for food in the hard years ahead.
Guyana’s government must focus on this talent as soon as possible. To do so would lead not only to self-sufficiency as a food basket, not just on the produce stalls at Stabroek Market, but also beyond the boundary - into the bigger global space of supply and demand, into economies and food markets that are regional, and also for us abroad who shop daily at local food stores here in the GTA.
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