Geisha Kow­lessar

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy yes­ter­day urged a more in­te­grat­ed ap­proach in com­bat­ing crime, es­pe­cial­ly as it re­lates to bor­der se­cu­ri­ty. Sandy was speak­ing at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of a counter-ter­ror­ism train­ing pro­gramme at the Po­lice Ser­vice Acad­e­my, St James. Per­son­nel from var­i­ous arms of lo­cal law en­force­ment are un­der­go­ing a two-week course led by the Galilee In­ter­na­tion­al Man­age­ment In­sti­tute, an Is­raeli pub­lic train­ing in­sti­tu­tion.

The ini­tia­tive tar­get­ed mem­bers of the De­fence Force, the Po­lice Ser­vice, emer­gency-man­age­ment agen­cies and the pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty in­dus­try. In the Caribbean basin, Sandy said, the chal­lenge of avoid­ing the il­lic­it scourge of the nar­cotics trade and the laun­der­ing of funds, as well as oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, had been am­pli­fied by glob­al­i­sa­tion. "Links be­tween the traf­fick­ing of drugs, guns and am­mu­ni­tion and oth­er forms of transna­tion­al crime call for a more in­te­grat­ed ap­proach to ad­dress this nexus," Sandy added. He said the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty, as well as a Cari­com Coun­cil of Min­is­ters re­spon­si­ble for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and law en­force­ment, had recog­nised the need for such an in­te­grat­ed ap­proach in tack­ling crime.