Officers complete maritime counter-narcotics course
Stabroek News
January 25, 2003
Nineteen officers, drawn from the Coast Guard, the police force and the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU), yesterday completed a two-week Advanced Counter-Narcotics Boarding Officer Course taught by US Coast Guard personnel.
The United States Embassy in Georgetown was represented at the presentation ceremony by U.S. Major Tyler Fitzgerald, Military Liaison Officer at the Embassy. In his address he said further training would commence in April and would be a Joint Boarding Officers Course.
Commander Terrence Pile of the Coast Guard said the training was timely because of the current crime situation in Guyana. He also made the point that it was partly the view of the armed forces that some of criminal activity being perpetrated was drug related. Pile said that in the Caribbean, through the regional security systems, there were joint efforts led by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to fight the drug trade. He noted that the US Department of Defence (DoD), through new legislation, has been making progress in the manner in which they deal with these activities. He explained that previously the DoD could not be directly involved in sharing information relating to illegal drug activities but that this had now changed.
The Advanced Boarding Officer Course is intended to assist in expanding maritime capabilities in law enforcement and in boarding vessels within Guyana’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Subjects such as Boarding Procedures, Hidden Compartments, High Risk Search Techniques and Handcuffing Techniques were presented.
The course has an intensive focus on defensive tactics and practical boarding scenarios and much of the training took place on vessels to add an element of realism. The newly acquired skills can be used in a variety of law enforcement missions such as counter-narcotics, enforcing fisheries laws, counter-contraband trading, countering illegal movement of people and any other type of maritime law enforcement. Guyana and the United States have signed the so-called `shiprider’ agreement which allows officers from either country to ride on vessels of the other for the purpose of drug interdiction. The Maritime Law Enforcement Agreement is to come before the National Assembly the next time it meets for ratification.
This is the seventh training exchange to take place in Guyana with the U.S. Coast Guard since the acquisition of four 44-foot motor lifeboats by the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard in June 2001.
