Barbados — Gates Arrives in Barbados to Promote Security Cooperation

BRIDGETOWN — Defense Sec­re­tary Robert M. Gates arrived here tonight for meet­ings to show sup­port for the Caribbean Basin Secu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive aimed at curb­ing drug traf­fick­ing and oth­er trans-bor­der threats.

Gates will meet tomor­row with sev­en Caribbean defense min­is­ters to assess progress in the ini­tia­tive Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma announced a year ago at the Fifth Sum­mit of the Amer­i­cans in Trinidad and Tobago. 

The sec­re­tary told reporters trav­el­ing with him that he plans to deliv­er the same mes­sage he has car­ried through­out this week’s Latin Amer­i­ca trip dur­ing vis­its to Peru and Colom­bia: The only way to con­front region­al threats is through region­al cooperation. 

“A key ele­ment of this [ini­tia­tive] is the region­al coop­er­a­tion among the sev­en Caribbean islands’ gov­ern­ments and the region­al secu­ri­ty arrange­ments that they have work­ing togeth­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly on nar­cotics, but also crime, which has become a real prob­lem in sev­er­al of the islands,” Gates said. 

The secu­ri­ty ini­tia­tive is built on three strate­gic objec­tives: sub­stan­tial­ly reduc­ing illic­it drug traf­fick­ing, advanc­ing pub­lic safe­ty and secu­ri­ty and pro­mot­ing social jus­tice. The Unit­ed States is pro­vid­ing fund­ing to help these coun­tries enhance their capa­bil­i­ties, train­ing and infor­ma­tion exchange to bet­ter address these challenges. 

Oba­ma ini­tial­ly pledged $30 mil­lion in fis­cal 2010 fund­ing for the ini­tia­tive, but Gates said an addi­tion­al $15 mil­lion was iden­ti­fied to boost that to $45 mil­lion. “About a third of that mon­ey will be used to … enhance their region­al secu­ri­ty arrange­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tions and boats for mar­itime inter­dic­tion,” he said. 

The president’s fis­cal 2011 bud­get request includes almost $73 mil­lion in mil­i­tary and eco­nom­ic aid for the program. 

Fif­teen Caribbean Basin nations are includ­ed in the secu­ri­ty ini­tia­tive: Antigua and Bar­bu­da, The Bahamas, Bar­ba­dos, Belize, Domini­ca, Domini­can Repub­lic, Grena­da, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Suri­name, and Trinidad and Tobago. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →