Camille Clarke

Chief of De­fence Staff (CDS), Brigadier Gen­er­al Rod­ney Smart, says the coun­try is plagued with falling val­ues and vi­o­lence against women and chil­dren.

Smart was ad­dress­ing his fel­low col­leagues yes­ter­day at the Chief of De­fence Staff Pa­rade at Tetron Bar­racks in Ch­aguara­mas.

"There is an up­surge of crime and vi­o­lence and the eco­nom­ic down­turn.

"There would be an ex­pec­ta­tion from our coun­try men in over­com­ing these threats," he said.

He said the De­fence Force is pre­pared to deal with these cir­cum­stances.

'We are ca­pa­ble of de­fend­ing the na­tion's in­ter­est and de­vel­op­ment. We must con­tin­ue to strike to meet the ex­pec­ta­tions of our coun­try men," he said.

He said de­spite bud­get cuts and the tough eco­nom­ic times the De­fence Force will de­liv­er.

"We have seen chal­lenges in our so­ci­ety of falling val­ues and vi­o­lent acts against women and chil­dren. We can see these in the purview of the falling stan­dards and we should be­come a bea­con in our na­tion," he said.

Smart ad­vised his col­leagues to con­tin­ue to work and pur­sue ex­cel­lence.

On a dif­fer­ent note, Smart said from this year on­ward there will be a pre­sen­ta­tion of the Brigadier Gen­er­al Roland Garth Maun­day Tro­phy for the Best For­ma­tion on Pa­rade.

This year's win­ner was the De­fence Force Re­serves and the tro­phy was giv­en to the Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer Ma­jor Andy Be­ra­haz­ar.

RE­CIP­I­ENTS OF AWARDS FOR OVER 30 YEARS SER­VICE

Maj C Richard­son

Maj A Be­ra­haz­ar

Maj L Mc Leon-Mo­hammed

Capt W McIn­tosh

Squ Ldr L Car­ring­ton

Squ Ldr C Jack­son

Flt Lt R Alexan­der

FCPo R Quashie

WO1 D Scant­er­bury

WO1 J Ed­wards

SS­gt Mo­hammed

SS­gt Haynes

SS­gt Smith

Sgt Cox