The `Advanced Boarding Officers Course' began on January 13 and concluded last week with a closing ceremony at the GDF Coast Guard Headquarters, Ruimveldt, Georgetown where 19 participants - 11 from the GDF Coast Guard, one from the Infantry Battalion, five from the GPF and two from CANU - collected their certificates and `tokens' from their instructors.

The course was conducted by a four-member team from the U.S. Coast Guard headed by Lieutenant Junior Grade Pinsuda Alexander.

Lieutenant Alexander noted that some aspects of the course, which was both theory and practical, entailed international law, drug identification, smuggling trends, and various techniques such as hand-cuffing, frisking, textbook procedures, pressure points, stands and takedown.

She also thanked the participants for their enthusiasm and motivation throughout the course.

Military Attaché at the United States Embassy, Major Tyler Fitzgerald gave the assurance of his government's continued commitment to assisting the Government and people of Guyana.

"I hope that the skills you have learnt with this Advanced Boarding Officers' course that you have just concluded would be beneficial to you and help to enable you to carry out your missions better as it relates to combating the narcotics scourge and stopping the movement of illegal contraband, stopping the illegal movement of people, and enforcing the fisheries and maritime law...and protecting your EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone)," Fitzgerald said.

Commanding Officer of the Guyana Coast Guard, Commander Terrence Pyle, congratulated all the participants of the course on behalf of the Army Chief of Staff, Brigadier Michael Atherly and the rest of the GDF. He also congratulated the members of the U.S. Coast Guard team for their work in completing the intensive training package.

"This training package certainly came at a very timely moment. It's timely because of what is happening around us in society today.

"And as I understand, this course focussed primarily on law enforcement as it relates to drug interdiction, and also aspects of illicit trades that are drug related," Pyle told those at the closing ceremony.

"We all know that our society is plagued today by manifestations of violence in different forms and in the midst, it is believed by the security forces that some of what we are seeing is the manifestation of drug-gang related killings, so we are experiencing, perhaps for the first time in our history, in such a form, the manifestation of the criminal activity that all societies of the world are trying to get rid of," he said.

"It is indeed a very difficult problem that we face as law enforcement personnel (but) I am sure that this training will certainly serve to raise the level and standard of your operations in the manner in which you approach the law enforcement tasks and duties," Pyle told the graduands.