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Thursday, January 18, 2007 – A training initiative to enhance the
capacity of St. Lucia's air and sea ports, in support of the upcoming ICC
Cricket World Cup, is set to begin here Monday 22nd January 2007.
The week long activity to be held at the School of Continuing Studies of the
University Centre on the Morne, is being conducted by the Secretariat of the
Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (CICTE).
Organisation of American States Representative to St. Lucia Paul Spencer says
the CICTE Security Border Patrol Training, is being pursued through funding and
technical assistance from the United States Department of Homeland Security.
“As you know many of the visitors who will be coming for World Cup will be
either US nationals, or will be originating their travel in the United States,
so therefore the United States has a vested interest in ensuring the ports and
sea ports in the Caribbean, which are used by US Carriers, boat shipping as well
as airlines are well protected,” said Spencer.
The training, he says, was preceded by a thorough security assessment of the
island's major ports of entry. The information gathered from the assessment
conducted by a two-man team in December, according to Spencer, was used to
formulate the training programme.
“Regrettably they weren't able to visit the yachting facility ports but we think
the information they were able to garner was sufficient for them to design a
training programme for customs, immigration and law enforcement personnel
currently employed at air and sea port in St. Lucia, the OAS official said.
The training, he says, is not exclusive to customs, immigration and law
enforcement personnel, but has also been extended to persons and sectors that
have an interest in port operations on the island.
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