"Looking at what is happening in the various territories we thought that the time had also come for a wider discussion on security in the region," Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Patrick Manning told journalists before heading into the final day of the two-day meeting here.
"The Heads agreed and they accepted the invitation of Trinidad and Tobago to come to Port of Spain early next month to have a fuller discussion on this matter, crime and security in the region, and to complete the rest of our deliberations on the legacy of Cricket World Cup 2007".
The epidemic of serious crime has taken a toll on Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and more recently Guyana, which has seen two massacres resulting in the death of 23 people.
Manning said that one way of addressing the crime menace would be the re-introduction of security measures which were implemented during the staging of the Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean in 2007.
"We had to lament the fact that we seem to be losing the political will to keep the gains that we had achieved in the successful staging of Cricket World Cup 2007; we've been eroding those gains and that it was important that we drew that to the attention of the Heads and to illicit from them a commitment to reaffirm their determination to preserve what we consider to be the most important legacy of Cricket World Cup 2007 and this they did," Manning said.
"As you know for Cricket World Cup 2007 there were nine countries involved and there was Dominica so that 10 countries constituted themselves into a Single Domestic Space, but to take it forward now we need to incorporate all countries of the region and one question that has arisen was what would be the position of the Associated States".
Manning who is responsible for crime and security in CARICOM's quasi Cabinet said that the secretariat would "look into that with a view to having those matters settled and we are moving toward incorporating into these security arrangements all the territories in the Caribbean.
"Bermuda, for example, indicated that they do not have a standing army. They have security concerns also and they want to be part of the arrangement, as indeed so many other countries in the region. So we are moving in that direction now and we were able to illicit from the Heads a reaffirmation of their determination to provide, in particular, the human resources that are required to ensure that the systems that we put in place work and work well," Manning added.
The systems which were put in place for CWC 2007 included the Regional Intelligence Fusion Centre in Port of Spain and the Joint Regional Communication Centre in Barbados.
"Those two institutions are key to the operations of the Advanced Passenger Information System and its extension, the Cargo Information System that is about to come in place," Manning said.
"We have to put back in place a common visa policy if we are to retain the single domestic space arrangement but that has questions of sovereignty involved in it and we'll have to discuss those questions.
"There are some complications and some areas of difficulty but we believe that a resolution of these matters would not be beyond us," Manning added.
CMC/db/vd/2008
Today's Date is: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:07:09
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