Richard Ra­moutar

Deemed to be an im­por­tant al­ly of the Unit­ed States, Colom­bia is seek­ing to forge, es­tab­lish, pro­mote and en­hance its se­cu­ri­ty and for­eign re­la­tions en­deav­ours in the Caribbean. Trinidad and To­ba­go, one of the lead­ing Cari­com na­tions is high­ly viewed as a sound, sta­ble and de­vel­op­ing na­tion with whom the gov­ern­ment of Colom­bia can ex­pand its bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions.

Viewed with­in this con­text, it should be not­ed that T&T has much to gain and learn, both from the per­spec­tives of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and for­eign af­fairs. In a Guardian re­port of April 19, 2012, Colom­bian Am­bas­sador Al­fre­do Ri­as­cos out­lined sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant ar­eas which can be mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial to T&T.

Such ar­eas in­clude na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, polic­ing, bor­der se­cu­ri­ty and de­fence co-op­er­a­tion, trade and in­vest­ments, po­ten­tial di­rect flights to Bo­go­ta, med­ical tourism, agri­cul­tur­al ex­changes and sport­ing, cul­tur­al and lan­guage ed­u­ca­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties. But the ques­tion re­mains, how far have we pro­gressed?

T&T can stand to gain much from its diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Colom­bia. Per­haps, the time may come when the Gov­ern­ment of T&T may con­sid­er the es­tab­lish­ment of an em­bassy in Bo­go­ta. Much cred­it must be giv­en to both gov­ern­ments for the es­tab­lish­ment of the Colom­bian em­bassy in Port-of-Spain.

Can Colom­bia ef­fec­tive­ly and mean­ing­ful­ly aid Trinidad and To­ba­go and does our gov­ern­ment pos­sess the po­lit­i­cal will to se­ri­ous­ly com­ple­ment our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty en­deav­ours against the forces and scourge of transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crimes, are ques­tions that re­main to be unan­swered. At this junc­ture it may be pru­dent to be­gin with the is­sue of se­cu­ri­ty co-op­er­a­tion.

Po­lice co-op­er­a­tion

As far back as March 2006, an agree­ment was signed be­tween the for­mer min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Mar­tin Joseph and Cami­lo Os­car Bernal, Colom­bia's Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al De­fence. This agree­ment was to fos­ter and pro­mote po­lice co-op­er­a­tion be­tween these two coun­tries in nu­mer­ous ar­eas.

It is my un­der­stand­ing that the Colom­bian gov­ern­ment is pre­pared and will­ing to train T&T's law en­force­ment and de­fence forces with spe­cialised skills in Colom­bia. It would be a re­ward­ing and ad­van­ta­geous op­por­tu­ni­ty for our of­fi­cers to be trained in Colom­bia, as well as un­der­stand­ing the cul­ture and lan­guage, and gain­ing valu­able in­tel­li­gence in­to the modus operan­di of transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crimes.

Colom­bia's ex­pe­ri­ence

This is a na­tion that has had a his­to­ry of po­lit­i­cal up­heavals, vi­o­lence, guer­ril­la up­ris­ing, (FARC) ter­ror­ism and the very epi­cen­ter of the once "nar­co-democ­ra­cy" of Colom­bia, but has with the pas­sage of time been able to man­age, con­trol and re­turn the coun­try to a po­lit­i­cal­ly sta­ble and pro­gres­sive na­tion.

Apart from these is­sues, a very care­ful in­ves­ti­ga­tion and analy­sis of Colom­bia would re­veal a warm, hos­pitable peo­ple, with a de­sire to ex­pand their in­vest­ment and trad­ing ties to the Caribbean.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, the Gov­ern­ment of Colom­bia, via their Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, Min­istry of Na­tion­al De­fence and the Colom­bian Na­tion­al Po­lice, de­signed an in­ter­na­tion­al co-op­er­a­tion strat­e­gy for in­te­gral se­cu­ri­ty that seeks to in­crease the ef­fec­tive­ness of the strug­gle against transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime.

Colom­bia is no stranger to the il­le­gal drugs prob­lem, or­gan­ised transna­tion­al crime and ter­ror­ism, the il­le­gal weapons traf­fic, am­mu­ni­tion and ex­plo­sives, the use and man­u­fac­ture of an­ti-per­son­nel mines. All of these is­sues are chal­lenges to se­cu­ri­ty, gov­er­nance, democ­ra­cy, de­vel­op­ment and pub­lic health.

The con­se­quences to­day are dif­fer­ent than ever be­fore. Colom­bia's na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty strat­e­gy is de­signed to help us in these ar­eas with the tools of co-op­er­a­tion, train­ing, tech­ni­cal and le­gal as­sis­tance, for by strength­en­ing the in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ties of our law en­force­ment sys­tems, T&T can ef­fec­tive­ly con­tribute to hemi­spher­ic se­cu­ri­ty.

For a very long time in this coun­try, the pub­lic could not as­cer­tain as to how and when il­le­gal drugs, guns and hu­man traf­fick­ing and il­le­gal mi­grants en­ter the coun­try. Colom­bian po­lice and oth­er in­tel­li­gence bod­ies can ef­fec­tive­ly feed lo­cal law en­force­ment and in­tel­li­gence agen­cies with this lev­el of in­for­ma­tion.

One would sup­pose that the Gov­ern­ment is very se­ri­ous about transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crimes and the true mean­ing of what con­sti­tutes the true mean­ing and in­tent of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. Colom­bia is well poised to as­sist us in the use of tech­ni­cal air in­tel­li­gence, port and air­port con­trol, dis­man­tling of or­gan­i­sa­tions, with as­set-laun­der­ing and as­sert for­fei­ture, and the is­sue of new tech­nolo­gies.

The Colom­bian navy can al­so as­sist with train­ing of the law of the sea with re­gards to il­lic­it drug traf­fick­ing in the re­gion.

There is a rea­son why it is called il­lic­it drug traf­fick­ing. How­ev­er and in what­ev­er form it is trans­port­ed, it is deemed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly un­law­ful. Re­cent­ly, Brigadier Ma­haraj point­ed out that he had no ev­i­dence that sub­marines are trans­port­ing drugs to Trinidad and To­ba­go. While that is the Brigadier's in­for­ma­tion, that does not erase the fact that it has not oc­curred be­fore nor that it will not oc­cur again.

How­ev­er, re­li­able in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­tel­li­gence and that of the US, Britain and from the Colom­bian gov­ern­ments do re­veal that so­phis­ti­cat­ed sub­marines de­signed in South Amer­i­ca are trans­port­ing il­le­gal drugs to their mar­kets in dif­fer­ent dis­guis­es. In this vein, as a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty spokesman, it is very crit­i­cal for Brigadier Ma­haraj to do his in­tel­li­gence home­work well, and keep abreast of cur­rent in­tel­li­gence oc­cur­rences.

In the face of pub­lic in­ter­est, this coun­try is yet to un­der­stand clear­ly how il­le­gal drugs guns and drugs en­ter and who fa­cil­i­tates and pro­tects for the bless­ings of the almighty dol­lar.