Stephen Williams, CHOGM's Gold Com­man­der, has as­sured that Prince Philip, the Duke of Ed­in­burgh, will be ad­e­quate­ly pro­tect­ed dur­ing his vis­it to To­ba­go on Thurs­day. "Every­thing that is nec­es­sary to be done for the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty for the Prince has been done. The Prince will be high­ly pro­tect­ed for his vis­it to To­ba­go," Williams as­sured yes­ter­day. Williams said an en­tire se­cu­ri­ty unit had been put in place to safe­guard Queen Eliz­a­beth II and her hus­band dur­ing their third vis­it to T&T. "We have been in con­stant di­a­logue with the Roy­al house­hold and the British High Com­mis­sion in Trinidad. We have done what is nec­es­sary; we are ful­ly pre­pared."

Williams said one should bear in mind that the Prince's vis­it would not be a nor­mal ex­is­tence in To­ba­go, "as op­posed to some­body liv­ing in To­ba­go who had no se­cu­ri­ty around them." To­ba­go has been marred by vi­cious crimes against for­eign­ers with­in re­cent times. In Au­gust British cou­ple Mir­i­um and Pe­ter Greene were beat­en and chopped in Ba­co­let, while Ger­man en­gi­neer Pe­ter Taut was found mur­der in the same area last month. Though Williams said all se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments had been put in place, he point­ed out that even with the best plan­ning "you can't plan for all even­tu­al­i­ties."

Hav­ing part­nered with the pro­tec­tive forces in Cari­com, both the mil­i­tary and po­lice, Williams ad­mit­ted that there would be a wider se­cu­ri­ty net­work dur­ing the three-day meet­ing in Port-of-Spain, when com­pared to the 2009 Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as, which was host­ed in Trinidad in April. "Se­cu­ri­ty will be in­creased for this con­fer­ence be­cause we are ex­pect­ing more heads of gov­ern­ment here." Peo­ple work­ing side by side with the 40 heads of gov­ern­ment lead­ers, Williams said, were high­ly-trained to han­dle any sit­u­a­tion.