The 4 term Head of Government of St. Kitts & Nevis, Dr. Denzil Douglas, told top security experts in Basseterre on Wednesday 3rd October, 2012, that such a challenge is affecting the ability of the Caribbean to fight the flow of illegal narcotics on the shores of the islands, the ability to fight the flow of illegal weapons and the capabilities to identify any human traffickers who may decide, as they move from one country to another in some way, to use our country.
He was delivering the Featured Address at the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) Commission meeting that opened in Basseterre on Wednesday.
Douglas, who is also his country’s National Security Minister, said the countries of the region know that they have to both anticipate – and effectively battle – all security threats as they arise. “We know that criminal elements are now using, with great efficiency, highly advanced technological and organizational approaches, in order to make inroads in this region, thus border security poses the biggest challenge for the Caribbean region.
The Prime Minister told delegates from the CARICOM member states, the Dominican Republic, Canada and the United States the enormous amount of time, energy, resources and expertise that go into the production, acquisition, storage, and transfer of illegal narcotics into the illegal trafficking in weapons of various types and, most depraved of all, into the trafficking of human beings, demand a multidimensional and incisive counter-attack from the forces of law, the forces of order, and the forces of good governance and that is what makes the work of the CBSI so very important.
“Most importantly, it reflects the inescapable reality that the production of drugs, the consumption of drugs, and the flow of weapons that always follow the drug trade has embroiled our hemisphere in a predicament from which we would all wish to be extricated. This, however, will not happen because we wish it. It will happen only as a result of the type of focused work that has taken place under the auspices of the CBSI, and that will continue to happen,” said Dr. Douglas.
The St. Kitts & Nevis leader was however adamant that Caribbean nations will continue pursuing a resolute course in the defence of their national security interests.