AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

The French navy’s sur­veil­lance frigate, the Ven­tôse is hop­ing to es­tab­lish a joint part­ner­ship with Trinidad and To­ba­go as drug traf­fick­ing con­tin­ues to thrive across the re­gion. 

The grand war­ship ves­sel is known glob­al­ly for its pres­ence in the Caribbean, pro­vid­ing mar­itime sur­veil­lance for French ter­ri­to­ries such as Mar­tinique, French Guiana and Mar­tinique. Armed with a max­i­mum speed of 20 knots and a Pan­ther he­li­copter, the French navy has been able to in­crease mar­itime and coastal se­cu­ri­ty across the Caribbean re­gion. 

The frigate is cur­rent­ly docked at Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, with the in­ten­tion to en­ter a more "con­crete" part­ner­ship with the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go to in­crease their joint com­bat against drug traf­fick­ing and oth­er il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties. 

Yes­ter­day at a press con­fer­ence aboard the Ven­tôse, Com­man­der Matthieu Ruf ad­mit­ted that drug car­tels con­tin­ue to or­gan­ise them­selves more ef­fi­cient­ly, mak­ing it hard­er for the sur­veil­lance frigate and the French navy.

“It is get­ting more and more dif­fi­cult be­cause their be­hav­iour is chang­ing every day. When they know we can catch them while get­ting this close, from one place to the oth­er place, they try some­thing else. They try it faster. They try it with sub­marines. They try it by night or by day when we are not there,” Ruf told Guardian Me­dia. 

While the Ven­tôse has led suc­cess­ful op­er­a­tions cap­tur­ing and in­ter­cept­ing ves­sels and per­sons trans­port­ing il­le­gal drugs and weapons, French Am­bas­sador Di­di­er Chabert, firm­ly be­lieves that close re­la­tions should be es­tab­lished be­tween the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard and the French Navy to in­crease their fight against il­le­gal mar­itime ac­tiv­i­ties. 

“We are very much in­volved in the fight against drug traf­fick­ing but al­so il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion and arms traf­fick­ing. It means that France and Trinidad and To­ba­go face the same chal­lenges as a re­gion. We are all on board to tack­le the same se­cu­ri­ty is­sues and there­fore it is very im­por­tant to es­tab­lish prop­er co­op­er­a­tion the se­cu­ri­ty forces of both coun­tries…it will be a win-win for both coun­tries,” Chabert said. 

At this time, no specifics have yet been fi­nalised re­gard­ing se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion be­tween both coun­tries.

“This vis­it is ded­i­cat­ed to es­tab­lish­ing con­crete co­op­er­a­tion ac­tiv­i­ties but it must be fi­nalised be­tween both sides. So I don’t want to en­ter now in­to de­tails be­cause it will be an ac­tion plan of co­op­er­a­tion which needs to be joint­ly agreed by both sides…but the need is on both sides.”