Conference on Caribbean Security and Strategy Underway in Negril

The issue of personal, national, regional, and international security is the focus of discussions at the third annual Conference on Caribbean Security and Strategy, which is being held at the Grand Lido Hotel, in Negril, Westmoreland, from June 2 to 6.
Approximately 40 representatives from five countries and 16 organisations across the Caribbean region are participating in the conference, which is being staged by the United States Naval War College, and the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF).
Using the Jamaican National Security Strategy document as a guide and focus, the conference participants are looking at the development of security strategy documents and the implementation process from a regional perspective.
Coordinator of the conference, Lieutenant Colonel Rocky Meade of the JDF, told JIS News yesterday (June 3) that one of the aim of the conference is to bring together as many agencies and representatives as is possible from countries across the region, to discuss the issue of national security in their country.
“Secondly and more importantly we want to create a common basis for discussing implementation of a national security strategy, because we created a strategy document a few years ago, now we are getting down to the implementation, and we need all the stakeholders to come together to use the same language and same principles for implementation,” he informed. Lt. Meade explained that the first two conferences held in 2006 and 2007 were used as a medium towards guiding the representatives from the different participating agencies and countries on how to create a national security strategy, while the present conference is aimed at focusing on the implementation process.
He pointed out that the process is being driven by the local Ministry of National Security, which has secured technical assistance from Canada, Britain, and the United States. According to Coordinator, the conference is not aimed at developing a crime plan, but instead it is focused on presenting the persons who are responsible for that task with the tools to do so.