Kevon Felmine

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty John Sandy in­di­cat­ed that more joint op­er­a­tions among the pro­tec­tive ser­vices will be held in an ef­fort to re­duce crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Sandy spoke yes­ter­day morn­ing as he vis­it­ed the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force's Fi­nal At­tack Phase train­ing ex­er­cise based at the Chatham Youth Camp, in Ce­dros. Dressed in full mil­i­tary at­tire, Sandy was ac­com­pa­nied by Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Col­in Par­tap and Spe­cial Ad­vi­sor Roy Au­gus­tus. Sandy said that a drug-in­ter­dic­tion op­er­a­tion, which be­gan on Wednes­day, re­sult­ed in $43 mil­lion worth of nar­cotics be­ing de­stroyed in just 36 hours. The op­er­a­tions took place in the forests of Ce­dros and Moru­ga.

It was a joint op­er­a­tion of the De­fence Force, Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the Coast Guard. Sandy said that such ac­tiv­i­ties, were what the mil­i­tary spe­cialise in and he in­di­cat­ed that it will con­tin­ue. "The army was made for the for­est and in this case, it of­fers an ad­van­tage to the po­lice as they would now have scouts and a point man. It is part of the strate­gic op­er­a­tions for the coun­try, in terms of crime fight­ing, so you will see more of it," he said. The min­is­ter al­so ob­served an ex­er­cise be­ing car­ried out in the Ce­dros for­est, where sol­diers sim­u­lat­ed a war zone with guns, and a hostage. Sandy said that this type of ex­er­cise had not oc­curred over the past decade and that many of the men would not have par­tic­i­pat­ed in such a drill be­fore. He said that the ex­er­cise was a step in the right di­rec­tion and that there were some ar­eas in the drill that need­ed to be ad­dressed.

Sandy said that law en­force­ment was a job for the po­lice and that over the past decade the De­fence Force had come to their aid. "Well you must un­der­stand, this is our thing. The De­fence Force in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the land forces in par­tic­u­lar, were de­signed for the fields, not ur­ban op­er­a­tions on the streets. Those are for the po­lice," he said. He added that though the sol­diers have en­gaged in a num­ber of op­er­a­tions with the po­lice, they were not be­ing utilised well in re­la­tion to their train­ing in the field. Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer Phillip Spencer said that over the past decade the army had be­come in­volved in sup­port­ing law en­force­ment. He said while the op­er­a­tions are an an­ti-crime ef­fort, it meant that the army had not con­tin­ued it's in­tense lev­el of train­ing. He said that the ex­er­cise was able to test the men's skills in per­form­ing com­bined arms op­er­a­tions and non-ur­ban op­er­a­tions.