Richard Lord

The Third Meet­ing of the Min­is­ters re­spon­si­ble for Pub­lic Se­cu­ri­ty in the Amer­i­c­as end­ed yes­ter­day with the ac­cep­tance of a "blue­print" for po­lice man­age­ment in OAS Mem­ber states, in­clud­ing T&T. In his clos­ing re­marks to the two-day con­fer­ence at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Wright­son Road, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Brigadier John Sandy said the Doc­u­ment of Port of Spain (rec­om­men­da­tions for Po­lice Man­age­ment) was adopt­ed and was now a blue­print. Sandy said the ob­jec­tives of that blue­print in­clud­ed "the mod­erni­sa­tion and pro­fes­sion­al­iza­tion of po­lice in­sti­tu­tions, through train­ing, im­proved tech­nol­o­gy and wider part­ner­ships in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic frame­work."

Key fea­tures of the blue­print are im­proved com­mu­ni­ca­tion and in­creased use of tech­nol­o­gy. The meet­ing was or­gan­ised by the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States. Sandy said it was now the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of in­di­vid­ual states "to im­ple­ment those rec­om­men­da­tions that would re­dound to en­hanced pub­lic se­cu­ri­ty in our coun­tries and in our re­gion." Sandy stressed the need for OAS states to "press for­ward with a spir­it of co-op­er­a­tion and co-or­di­na­tion" to­wards the next meet­ing in Colom­bia in 2013. As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the OAS Al­bert Ramdin in his clos­ing re­marks said the crime sit­u­a­tion in mem­bers states forces lead­ers to make un­pop­u­lar de­ci­sions and take ac­tions that were not wel­comed by all.

He said: "This is why we must ex­am­ine our mo­tives and ask our­selves whether po­lit­i­cal pop­u­lar­i­ty and ex­pe­di­en­cy should out­weigh what is in the best in­ter­est of com­mu­ni­ties plagued by mur­ders, gang re­lat­ed vi­o­lence and kid­nap­ping. He said "crime and vi­o­lence threat­ens de­mo­c­ra­t­ic sta­bil­i­ty and pos­es re­al ob­sta­cles to hu­man, so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment." Ramdin said he hoped that stake­hold­ers "will be able to de­liv­er on the promise to strength­en co-op­er­a­tion our po­lice in­for­ma­tion sys­tems and fos­ter the use of tech­nol­o­gy."