Per­son­nel from the Unit­ed Na­tions Of­fice for Dis­ar­ma­ment's Re­gion­al Cen­tre for Peace, Dis­ar­ma­ment and De­vel­op­ment in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (UN­LIREC) are cur­rent­ly train­ing 60 lo­cal se­cu­ri­ty sec­tor per­son­nel to de­stroy firearms and am­mu­ni­tion.The train­ing is tak­ing place in co-op­er­a­tion with the Gov­ern­ment of T&T as part of joint ef­forts to com­bat the il­lic­it traf­fick­ing in firearms, strength­en the ca­pac­i­ty of the coun­try's se­cu­ri­ty forces and re­duce armed vi­o­lence in T&T and the re­gion.

This two-week project is part of the UN­LIREC Caribbean As­sis­tance Pro­gramme, launched in T&T in Ju­ly 2010 and car­ried out in eight Caribbean coun­tries with the fi­nan­cial sup­port of Cana­da and the Unit­ed States.Many years of UN work, con­duct­ed world­wide, con­clud­ed that com­pli­ance with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards re­duces dras­ti­cal­ly the risk of di­ver­sion of firearms in­to the il­lic­it mar­ket through theft, loss and "leak­ages" from stock­piles owned by gov­ern­ments or pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies.The UN­LIREC train­ing of se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel, cou­pled with its as­sis­tance to the Gov­ern­ment's de­struc­tion of sur­plus and ob­so­lete weapons, will con­tribute to greater se­cu­ri­ty in T&T and the Caribbean. The de­struc­tion of ex­pired am­mu­ni­tion and ex­plo­sives will al­so re­duce sig­nif­i­cant­ly the risk of ac­ci­den­tal ex­plo­sions.

At the re­quest of the Gov­ern­ment, UN­LIREC pro­vides its tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise and as­sis­tance, as well as spe­cialised train­ing and equip­ment, to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty for its de­struc­tion of seized, ob­so­lete and un­ser­vice­able firearms and a large quan­ti­ty of ex­pired am­mu­ni­tion as well as ex­plo­sives.A for­mal de­struc­tion cer­e­mo­ny by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice will be held on Sat­ur­day at the St James Po­lice Bar­racks to demon­strate the com­mit­ment of the Gov­ern­ment to join forces with the UN to com­bat and erad­i­cate il­lic­it traf­fick­ing in weapons and am­mu­ni­tion."De­struc­tion is the best, and ir­re­versible, way to en­sure that sur­plus weapons and il­lic­it firearms, in­clud­ing those con­fis­cat­ed from crim­i­nals, do not find their way back in­to the hands of those who threat­en the lives of in­no­cent and the se­cu­ri­ty of com­mu­ni­ties," de­clared Agnès Mar­cail­lou, rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Unit­ed Na­tions Of­fice of Dis­ar­ma­ment Af­fairs.

Dur­ing the same pe­ri­od, UN­LIREC will train 60 mil­i­tary, po­lice and law en­force­ment per­son­nel, women and men alike, dur­ing a ten-day com­pre­hen­sive course ad­dress­ing all as­pects of il­lic­it firearms traf­fick­ing.The Of­fice for Dis­ar­ma­ment Af­fairs' Re­gion­al Dis­ar­ma­ment Cen­tres, which in­cludes UN­LIREC, serves more than 135 coun­tries world­wide and as­sists them in im­ple­men­ta­tion of arms con­trol and dis­ar­ma­ment pro­grammes.