| SOUTHCOM to Enhance Cooperation with Caribbean Partners |
| By L.K. Hewlett |
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General Douglas Fraser |
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SOUTHCOM Commander U.S. Air Force General Douglas Fraser says the agency is committed to enhancing existing cooperative ties with Caribbean partners. Gen. Fraser was in St. Kitts attending the December 13-14 Caribbean Nations Security Conference (CANSEC), held under the theme “Regional Information Sharing to Combat Transnational Organized Crime and assist Foreign Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response”.
Some 17 Caribbean nations were represented at the strategic planning sessions by the heads of their Armed Forces and Chiefs of Police for those countries without armed forces.
Speaking exclusively with The Observer, Gen. Fraser said although the level of cooperation between SOUTHCOM and its regional partners was “great”, the US agency was looking to enhance that cooperation in 2012. He also said the agency was taking steps to improve information sharing among partners.
“We continue to focus on a couple of different areas as we look to enhance the cooperation that we have, and we have great cooperation with all the armed forces. We are working on how to improve our information sharing. We have in the US a program called the ‘All Partners Access Network’ (APAN) which is a computer-based information-sharing tool and over the past year we’ve had representatives from the region trained to use the system,” he said.
The SOUTHCOM Commander said some testing of the system had been successfully conducted however the agency would continue to evolve that tool.
“Understanding and working on how we make sure information passes readily in each of these tools and to make sure we are using the right tools were part of the discussion during the conference. Making sure we’re not duplicating our efforts is one of the biggest concerns we have,” he revealed.
General Fraser informed of the development of a Cooperative Sensors Information Integration tool will take existing aerial and maritime radar systems and through a computer server put the pictures together so that authorities can build a common picture of air and maritime traffic in the region.
General Fraser told The Observer that the list of topics for the conference was “extensive” and included a presentation by a representative from the US Department of State discussing the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative and all the developments that had occurred over the past year.
The most important thing in the near future, Gen Fraser expressed, was focusing on the capabilities that were presently available to the armed forces and SOUTHCOM and using them to improve how they were addressing collective security concerns.
With regard to transnational organized crime, illicit drug trafficking between Central America and the US through the Caribbean posed the biggest threat to the region’s security, he opined.
“I see [the threat] as a regional issue, as a hemispheric issue and one that we have to continue to work together,” Gen. Fraser told security chiefs at the conference.
U.S. Southern Command works with its partners to counter and deter illegal activities associated with illicit trafficking, which is a significant threat to security and stability in the Western Hemisphere. The primary focus of SOUTHCOM’s Counter-Illicit Trafficking (CIT) efforts is to support the interdiction of drug trafficking. SOUTHCOM collaborates with other agencies and nations to support interdiction of Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) through detection and monitoring, information sharing, and partner nation capacity building. |
