RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Com­bat­ting crime, hu­man and nar­co-traf­fick­ing is a top for­eign pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ty of the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment, ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cial from the Unit­ed States Em­bassy in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing a meet­ing be­tween US Am­bas­sador Can­dace Bond, Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray and oth­er law en­force­ment pro­fes­sion­als last Mon­day, the US of­fi­cial re­it­er­at­ed the US gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to com­bat­ing crime and sup­port­ing the rule of law in the re­gion.

“Com­bat­ting crime and sup­port­ing the rule of law is a top for­eign pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ty of the US gov­ern­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Se­cu­ri­ty co-op­er­a­tion con­tributes to re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty, the in­vest­ment cli­mate nec­es­sary to at­tract and grow the econ­o­my, and rep­re­sents our shared val­ues as de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­eties,” the of­fi­cial said.

The em­bassy em­pha­sised the cru­cial role of se­cu­ri­ty co-op­er­a­tion in pro­mot­ing re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty, fos­ter­ing an in­vest­ment-friend­ly cli­mate, and up­hold­ing shared de­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues.

“The US Em­bassy is work­ing close­ly with our Trin­bag­on­ian coun­ter­parts to strength­en Trinidad and To­ba­go se­cu­ri­ty and law en­force­ment in­sti­tu­tions through train­ing, pro­fes­sion­al ex­changes, per­son­nel, equip­ment, and close col­lab­o­ra­tion, to re­duce il­le­gal traf­fick­ing, crime, and crim­i­nal­i­ty,” the of­fi­cial added.

These ef­forts are un­der­way to re­duce il­le­gal traf­fick­ing, crime, and crim­i­nal­i­ty in T&T.

The em­bassy said it will al­so ad­dress the root caus­es of crime by en­gag­ing with var­i­ous seg­ments of so­ci­ety.

“We are al­so work­ing with our Trin­bag­on­ian coun­ter­parts to ad­dress the root caus­es of crime by col­lab­o­rat­ing with young peo­ple, civ­il so­ci­ety, re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions, schools, and com­mu­ni­ty groups that sup­port at-risk youth to help them find paths to more pros­per­ous, healthy lives as adults,” the of­fi­cial said.

This in­cludes work­ing close­ly with young peo­ple, civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions, re­li­gious groups, schools and com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions that sup­port at-risk youth. By pro­vid­ing av­enues for these in­di­vid­u­als to build pros­per­ous and healthy lives as adults, the em­bassy aims to con­tribute to long-term crime pre­ven­tion and com­mu­ni­ty re­silience.

This re­newed em­pha­sis on com­bat­ting traf­fick­ing and crime comes in the wake of a re­cent high-lev­el meet­ing be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and top US of­fi­cials at the Pen­ta­gon in the Unit­ed States. The meet­ing was host­ed by Deputy As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary of De­fense for West­ern Hemi­sphere Af­fairs, Daniel Erik­son.

Dis­cus­sions were cen­tred on il­lic­it traf­fick­ing and mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty, de­fence force mod­erni­sa­tion and train­ing, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, and frame­works to fa­cil­i­tate ex­pand­ed bi­lat­er­al se­cu­ri­ty co-op­er­a­tion.