Plans Far Advanced for Establishment of Joint Regional Command Centre

Plans are far advanced for the establishment of the Joint Regional Command Centre, to be based in Barbados.
This was stated by Chairman of the Security Sub-Committee and Deputy Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, at a press briefing on the first day of the Sixth Meeting of the Bureau of Council of Ministers of National Security and Law Enforcement, which was held in Port of Spain on December 2.
“It is being established in Barbados as we speak,” she said, adding that the centre would be regionally staffed.
The Chairman also acknowledged that the region had sought technical assistance from the government of the United States to establish the centre.
This assistance, she further clarified, was provided in the same way as other requests from other governments, “or the same way that developed countries, for example Europe, may receive technical assistance from NATO”.
It is expected that the centre will co-ordinate processes for the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS), which is also being developed in collaboration with the United States.
Allaying fears concerning the APIS infringing on people’s privacy, Miss Mottley assured that the system only related to obtaining the names, passport number and visas of persons.
“[These are] things within the machine readable zone of the passport and indeed are already the subject of exchanges across many countries in the world and in fact, is information that would be public once the person landed and cleared immigration,” she argued.
In the meantime, the Chairman expressed satisfaction with a recent meeting with all the regional airlines as well as international airlines operating within the region.
“We had a very successful meeting, because we recognize that they are key stakeholders with us in our ability to manage this process of expediting the movement of persons throughout the single domestic space, while at the same time, not in any way compromising the security of our nationals, who obviously will have to be equally concerned about their own security, given the level of attention on the region during Cricket World Cup,” she said.