David JessopTHERE CAN be few politicians who have had to face in the space of 24 hours the challenges experienced by Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
On Wednesday he found himself having to channel and celebrate the national euphoria associated with winning a strongly contested Olympic bid. And then the following day he had to give confidence to an alarmed and shocked nation in the face of a terrorist attack while trying to achieve agreement between leaders of the Group of Eight most powerful industrialised nations on a far-reaching international agenda relating to poverty in Africa and environmental change.
INCREASING LEVELS OF CRIME
The London bombings serve as an horrific reminder of why security needs to remain close to the top of the Caribbean's agenda and the challenge that such issues pose in a fragmented region.
Increasing levels of crime across the region in which killings, kidnappings and narcotics-related violence have become common place and the need to defend the region's now vital tourism economy and its related investments have rapidly moved the issue of regional security co-ordination, up the regional agenda
For these reasons it was an important theme at the just-completed Caribbean Heads of Government conference.
The communiqué in its usual abbreviated style observed that the region's leaders recognised that security 'needed to be frontally addressed and effectively tackled in order to maintain sustainable development'. However, these vague words hide important decisions on the manner in which such issues in future will be managed across the region.
At the St. Lucia summit, what Caribbean Heads did was to endorse a proposal for a regional framework for managing crime and security. This makes provision for a new Council of Ministers that will be responsible for developing and directing a regional policy on national security and law enforcement. It will be linked to two other bodies, one dealing with security policy and the other with the implementation of crime and regional security policy.
MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK
The new structure has been under consideration for some time and follows from meetings held between National Security Ministers in Trinidad, Jamaica and St. Kitts during the course of this year.
Of these perhaps the most significant took place in May when regional national security ministers and representatives from a wide range of regional and other agencies met in St. Kitts and proposed a management framework.
This meeting brought together work being undertaken by a regional ministerial sub-committee under the chairmanship of Jamaica's Minister of National Security, Dr. Peter Phillips and the CARICOM/United Kingdom Security Cooperation Plan which provides for co-ordination between regional security mechanisms, the U.K. and other entities outside of the Caribbean.
INTELLIGENCE-SHARING
NETWORK
At the St. Kitts meeting described subsequently by participants as 'a watershed' and 'seminal' a series of priorities were agreed. These included training for security and law enforcement officials, the establishment of a regional information and intelligence-sharing
network and the creation of a maritime co-operation and
border security mechanism. It also enabled movement on the creation of a mutual legal assistance treaty that in an agreed range of circumstances will enable security assistance to be provided by one CARICOM country to another in the event of a national emergency.
Subsequent meetings were able to resolve problems and recommend the new framework for addressing regional crime and security issues that Caribbean Heads of Government have just endorsed.
What has emerged from all of these meetings is for the first time, a coherent regional approach to security and crime that relates to the cross border nature of the threats that the region now faces.
Apart from all of this being essential to address the high rates of crime and new forms of criminal activity that the region is now experiencing, these structures are also essential to protect the region's tourism economy, the billions of dollars invested and the hundreds of thousands it employs.
In 2007 the Cricket World Cup and hundreds of thousands of visitors will come to the region and with it a very real threat of a terrorist attack.
Ministers and officials from the organising body recognise the dangers. Saint Lucia's Minister of National Security, Calitxe George recently noted: "the efficient and seamless
operation of the security
elements of (the cricket world cup), are vital to our survival as a region" but also made clear he and fellow ministers were confident that all necessary measures will be in place.
Despite this, concerns remain outside of the region that there are many key issues still to be addressed and resolved.
Among areas that remain under discussion are the need to better understand and exchange intelligence on risk; concerns associated with airlift and accommodation; the need for better co-ordination between customs and immigration departments; implementation of common visa arrangement within CARICOM; the creation of a single standard for immigration clearance; the electronic transfer of information between countries; and access to the data bases to monitor movement of persons.
Last week Prime Minister Blair proved that he has qualities that set him apart from most world leaders. That is the ability to rise to be a man for all seasons. These are attributes as rare as his capacity to find words that express publicly what ordinary people are thinking and feeling when insecurity threatens.
Let us hope that no Caribbean leader ever has to rise to such a challenge.
David Jessop is the director of the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at david.jessop@caribbean-council.org
