 Welcome to the official launch of the UNIX Unity Exercise 2024. I am Lieutenant Colonel Roberto Beltran, and I will be your master of ceremonies for the duration of this official launch. The regional security system is currently partnering with the European Union and CARE Forum through the 11th European Development Fund Program to strengthen the national and regional security architecture in detection, prevention, and management of crime and strengthening the RSS response framework to critical crime and security matters affecting the RSS subregion. With that in mind, I would like to ask the Commissioner of Police acting Ronald Phillip from the Royal St. Lucia Police Force to kindly come and give us some welcome remarks. I have the pleasure of doing the welcome address this morning so I intend to be brief. For persons who travel this morning, I know that the schedule is tight so I see that the RSS delivered you to our beautiful country safely so we extend thanks to the pilots for making it happen. This exercise is in keeping with the regional security system mandate of strength through unity. This exercise will see us embarking on developing goals and executing plans to deal with issues of transnational organized crime, terrorism, and its associated evils. In recent times, we have all witnessed the rise of arms trafficking as an independent industry within our member states. Today's exercise is ideal as it awards us with the perfect opportunity to strengthen our readiness, interoperability, interconnectivity, and determination in dealing with the scourge of nefarious activity. As a collective, there is no better way to deal with the issues affecting us but in unison. This unity exercise is very important to the Caribbean region as it provides a much needed platform for a large number of participants who are actively involved in the country's national security apparatus to meet in one location to charter the way forward in the development of such a prestigious exercise. Such training exercises are designed to prepare member states for any eventuality which may pose a threat to our region or issues which may undermine citizen safety and security in our theater of operation. St. Lucia, the host nation, stands to benefit tremendously from this training as we have unfortunately had a lull in the quantity of training received in recent times. I welcome the funding and commitment from the European Union and the regional security system. This level of commitment and dedication of our partners will go a long way in ensuring that unity exercise 2024 is a success. It is indisputable that failure to unite coercively as a collective entity driven by a shared objective of strengthening defenses on all fronts will inevitably give rise to challenges faced by all governmental entities worldwide. Criminal organizations that operate across borders engage in unlawful activities with impunity illustrating the need for us to join forces and confront present and emerging threats. This presents an opportunity to acquire knowledge, foster collaboration and establish robust networks within our security forces both in an informal and formal capacities by ensuring our police and defenses and our defense forces are thoroughly prepared to operate in unison with a clear sense of purpose we can effectively address these challenges. I also want to offer a very special welcome to our colleague from Guyana, Lieutenant Souvené give him a round of applause please Colonel Souvené who is there with us who is there with us in person at this media launch, Guyana is the most recent country to become part of the original security system we look forward to having a full contingent from Guyana at UNIX 2024 welcome sir to the Helen of the West in this St. Lucia the original security system has proven to be a pillar of hope in meeting some of our security challenges in times of crisis whether it be man-made or natural disasters crime and intelligence and information sharing it is my hope that the original security system will allow for further expansion by allowing more member states within our midst in the face of crimes relentless assault on our territories we must stand united in our resolve to protect and restore the peace we once all cherished just as the chain is only as strong as its weakest links our efforts to combat transnational organized crime are only as effective as our collective unity together as one cohesive force we can break down the barriers that divide us and forge a future where safety justice peace and harmony prevail let us remember that it is in our shared commitment and wavering support an unbreakable bond that we find the strength to face any challenge and triumph over the forces of evil that threaten the very fabric of our societies today at this media launch let us declare with unwavering conviction that unity will be our weapon of choice in the fight against criminal activities for it is together that we shall prevail and secure a brighter safer tomorrow for all the SS member states in concluding permit me to use the words of former president Barack Obama and I quote the fight against crime is not just a battle of law enforcement it is a fight for the soul of our nation we must not only apprehend the criminal but also address the root that causes that lead to their actions end of quote so on this note I want to welcome you to this media launch thank you Mr. Ronald Phillip acting commissioner of police of the Royal Saint Lucia police force I am sure that when you mention that these threats threaten borders regional and international that everyone here does agree with you sir so I would like to reiterate your words in thanking the European Union for funding such an exercise that will bring us together to name unity exercise and with that said with that in mind I would like to welcome Commodore Earrington Sherline executive director of the regional security system my apologies if you for would you kindly come up and give you give us some kind remarks thank you very much master ceremonies the honorable Dr. Virginia Albert Poyote minister in the ministry of public service home affairs labor and gender affairs Dr. Elizabeth Bailey permanent secretary department of home affairs acting commissioner let me say that I fully endorse your remarks in fact I perhaps not only fully endorse but you are hard act to follow you spoke with such eloquence and I believe you were perhaps keeping up my notes but that's okay Mr. Alessandro Tedesco attache delegation of the European Union to Barbados and Eastern Caribbean the OECS carry common carry forum my colleagues from the regional security system the senior public officials from the government of St. Lucia other specially invited guests members of the media distinguished ladies and gentlemen all who are present with us and those online very pleasant good morning firstly let me bring greetings from our chairman the honorable Robeson Ben minister of home affairs of Cayara and it is my distinct pleasure to be able to join you this morning at the launch of the unity exercise commonly referred to as UNIX this for me is a treasured moment for the RSS as it exemplifies the commitment of the RSS to produce timely collaborative solutions to the common priority security concerns of our member states the realization of support for this particular exercise was developed from initial discussions held more than three years ago when my staff commenced their engagement and planning with the European Union delegation office officials for the second iteration of the European Development Fund program UNIX 2024 will be implemented under the RSS 11th EDF project which seeks to promote the strengthening of the RSS sub-regional response mechanism to transnational organized crime and other security threats which engender instability in our member states we have the RSS have had a long and a pro-tradition of coordinating operational deployments to countries stricken to include not only RSS member states but also non-RSS member states those states were stricken by natural hazards social unrest and other circumstances as well as leading initiatives to strengthen capacities at the national and regional level in operational response the RSS which is now comprised of eight member states which are now co-operation amongst its membership in addressing mutual security concerns we do so through a bold collective security model which provides for rapid non-biocratic response deployments from our member states we have taken on this role with further for the past 40 years mobilizing much needed support to our member states in light of this critical role we at the RSS have undertaken a keen interest in developing and upgrading our mobilization plans and our standard operational procedures to give effect to a more secure and efficient response mechanism and provision for the evaluation of the usefulness and utility of the mechanism to our member states you may begin to wonder why there is a need for a homegrown exercise that is designed to test the efficacy of our response mechanism some of you may not need convincing of this but for others I will give you a slight perspective a historical perspective between 1982 and present the RSS member states have experienced almost 100 hazards events ranging from tropical cyclones to hurricanes to chemical spills to fire floods, drought and volcanic activity the records indicate that approximately 1.9 million persons were affected across this timeline with adjusted estimated damages to the tune of US $8.87 billion this demonstrates the severity of the impact that these events have had on security of our citizens and permits one to make valid assumptions about the state of instability created in the immediate aftermath of these events we also have to consider transnational organized crime whether it be the movement of drugs the movement of guns illegal migration whether we consider violent crime and the use of weapons in violent crime in our region these are all security considerations that impact our region I'm sure we can all agree that it is in our best interest that stricken states return to states of normalcy as quickly as possible however this is achieved more efficiently when there is a strong realistic framework under which available resources are mobilized to support national response plans by affected member states UNEX was designed to test just that the realistic application of the mobilization plan and the accompanying standard operating procedures at the RSS HQ we foresee a security environment which may be affected by more serious climatic events and public health concerns migratory pressures and post-conflict and post-disaster economies and sustained by transnational criminal organizations as a result the exacerbation of crime and insecurity environments due to the nefarious use of technology and artificial intelligence disrupting the availability of credible information required for security response planning and execution and a revised global regulatory and financial framework which will grapple with the sustainment of fiat currency and corresponding regulation of the financial sector in light of the crypto and blockchain technology among other things this environment signifies the importance of constantly monitoring the security environment with a view to understanding its evolution and evaluating the utility of our response mechanism to these threats we may necessarily need to upgrade the alliance in light of deficiencies that are uncovered by the looks of it and its significant tasks but I assure you my dear friends that my team and I remain up to the challenge we look forward to strong consultations with our member states and engagement with our partners such as the European Union we need to see how best we can be prepared to tackle these shared concerns our cooperative relationship with the European Union is a move in the right direction I want to place on record my profound gratitude to the European Union for its partnership with the RSS over the years and its strong commitment as a steadfast and dependable ally in combating priority security concerns of the RSS we look forward to achieving the results foreseen with UNIX and the wider 11th EDF project and I hope to continue the strengthening of the alliance through worthwhile partnerships within and outside of the sub-region Thank you for your attention Thank you very much Commodore Errington-Sherland Executive Director of the Regional Security System for those kind words Sir at this point in time I would like to thank you yourself and your deputy director deputy executive director and all your directors for all your hard work which they have put into ensuring that we are where we are now with this conversation started three years ago I would like to thank you on your team for an excellent job so that we could ensure that we have this much needed exercise in collaboration with the European Union so once again I would like to call on Mr. Alessandro Tedesco Atashe from the delegation of the European Union to kindly come and give us some of his remarks as coming from the donor organization Sir It is obviously a pleasure to be with you here today for the launch of the RSS Unity Exercise UNIX-2024 I carry with me the salutations of our ambassador Margolica Vasileveska and I'm here to tell you a few words about our motivations to sponsor these events which will take place in San Lucia in April 2024 within the context of the Strengthening, Low Enforcement and Border Security in the Caribbean project which is our current endeavor with the RSS a 24 month project financed by the European Union to support the capacity building efforts of RSS this is in continuity with the partnership we previously organized the choice of San Lucia for the conduct of the exercise is not a random one actually one of the UNIX key objective will be to test the host nation national contingency plans for crime and security at the time of particular stress for the country's authorities confronted with significant threats the goal will be pursued with the help of security agencies inspired and this is a trademark of the organization by the spirit of solidarity which we can always find in RSS operations a few words on the context of these activities from our perspective the support to RSS is part of a larger commitment of the EU to help ensuring higher security standards in the region parallel to our partnership with RSS we're scaling up also our cooperation with CARICOM impacts we're currently providing software and equipment for the processing of data related to border management control we should soon be joined by colleagues from our CECO program which is our CECO cooperation project with all the intention to have them on board for the cooperation for cooperation on the UNIX exercise I think this is yet one more evidence of the EU intention to provide an increasingly coordinated assistance to our regional partners up to meet the ever evolving needs arising from the context the EU intends to strengthen its presence in the Caribbean over the next months most of our cooperation programs with Latin America will soon expand to the region making your countries eligible to the provision of father-U expertise and know-how for instance the case of El Pacto which will be our flagship program on judicial cooperation and which has been quite a success in Latin America for the past few years this program support the fight against transnational organized crime and it's due to begin its operation in the Caribbean second half of 2023 this will offer your law enforcement agency and judicial to provide a wide range of tools and contacts with their EU counterparts I was telling to Commodore Shureland that we are also in the process of establishing contacts with the European and Gendarmerie force in view of a possible partnership for the delivery of some of the trainings foreseen by our current project with RSS the European Gendarmerie force in brief Euro-Gend force is a European rapid reaction force composed of elements of several European police in Gendarmerie with performing police in tasks within the scope of crisis management operations similarities with RSS structure and mandate are strikingly evident and will hopefully lead to a mutually profitable cooperation I would like to end my intervention by reminding the words of Ambassador Vasilevska at the last RSS Council meeting in Grenada it is important to consider the European Union not only as a financial donor we have so much more to offer and we would like to become a true operational partner starting with the UNIX exercise but leading to a much deeper cooperation between our structures here and on the other side of the Atlantic in other words we are looking forward to strengthen our partnership in the months to come I shall thank you for your attention Thank you very much Mr. Alessandro Tedesco for those kind words and I'm sure that we all agree that strengthening law enforcement and border security in the Caribbean is much needed and very well welcomed UNIX 2024 the planning cycle is one year planning cycle we initiated the planning cycle by doing a concept development conference a couple months ago here in St. Lucia we are now here at the official launch which will be immediately followed by the initial planning conference in the next two months or so we will be having the main the mid planning conference followed by the final planning conference to wrap up the planning cycle for UNITY exercise 2024 with that in mind I would like to ask Lieutenant Commander Brian Roberts Director Training Regional Security System to come and give us an exercise overview of UNIX 2024 sir please and this presentation will take the form of a point presentation so you can look towards the screen to our front by pleasant good morning to all of you in the room see a lot of familiar faces as well as those online welcome welcome and we look forward to making this a reality I'm quite happy that we have reached the stage and we are now ready to continue the planning as my colleague Lieutenant Colonel Bertrand would have said we already started already from back in January we have seen the leaders engagement then we had the concept development and now out of that concept development I would like to give you my specification let's get all the parameters for the exercise which I will do a summary of here now in this brief okay next slide please so this is the agenda here to see it and we will go and show them to give you the summary outlining what we are doing for the exercise alright now just by way of background before we move off here okay out of a need to provide a homegrown exercise for the subregion the access subregion and this was our focus and it was intended to be every year but due to financial constraints it fell off and we were unable to do it then we were able to pick it back up in the last two years but we did it online using trick table top exercises and command post exercises and now we are here now doing our first pledge field training exercise with actual books on the ground alright so this is what this is all about alright so we are here and thanks to the gracious support from our European partners to support this endeavor as you would appreciate it is a quite costly adventure and we are happy that we could collaborate and put it on for the region and then we hope to continue to do it hopefully on an annual basis but at least if we can't do it annually we could at least that is a full pledge we can do something online and at least every two years we can do a full pledge so we are working towards that alright so the aim of the exercise the aim of the exercise is to evaluate the application of command control communications computers intelligence commonly referred to C4I and assess the interoperability of the RSS combined joint task force particularly the ability to coordinate the resources required in operations countering threat networks countering transnational organized crime and countering terrorism and this is as well these two themes here the transnational organized crime and the terrorism is the main focus supported by the project alright next slide exercise objectives you will have heard some of them in some of the addresses but here we go the first one is to validate the reason security system mobilization plan and this is a mechanism in which we use to get our troops from country A B to country C etc to support a national request so the member state would be overwhelmed for whatever reason need assistance we took to the RSS headquarters and we mobilized that force in to help to give the necessary assistance there is a plan there that we follow the testing the validity of it to make sure that its current is effective, is efficient and it's meeting all needs we also going to validate the operations of the combined joint task force and this is a joint meaning several different disciplines within the force so we have a land component an air component we can have a sea component as well and the combined meaning that different nationalities multi-national in nature so this is the task force and this is ready for the biggest scheme of things this could be scale down based on the operation obviously but this is the ideal to move the entire force of over 100 strength and then there are some sub objectives of objective number two to effective use of the standard operating procedures reports and returns and staff duties application of the operation planning process the process we use to properly plan and do the proper analysis courses of action and then conduct the operations based on proper studies and planning and then the efficient effective, efficient command, control, communications, computers and intelligence so we using all of those those areas there to develop the exercise if we don't have proper command if we don't have proper communications we can't communicate, we can't talk to each other we can use the technology that's available to us intelligence is very critical as well in the operational planning so we got to make sure all those areas are locked down number three enhance inter-agency cooperation and interoperability and this is something we've been doing for years we want to make it better so when we have trained a similar standard then we can all operate off the same page and be more efficient in how we operate as a collective as one RSA security alliance and number four develop, implement internal contingency crime on security plans of the regional security system host nation joint operations so this is a feature that we do with all exercises to ensure that there's something in it for the member state so we're just not coming to do our own thing but you're involved and you're getting something out of it at the end of the day next slide now this is our training and our next course is the host nation for UNICEF 2024 and you will see there from the diagram that we will be doing training primarily in the cast trees to Pigeon Island area which is the north western section of the island DENERY and eastern course and then we're going to use the southern course to sort of view forward so we practically will be across the entire country but we will record the specifics and we continue the planning process so that's just a quick overview exercise design now the exercise is broken up into three phases phase zero is what we are doing, have started already the process has started, all the training that we've been doing the joint operations and planning the cyber training which is a bridge watch type bridge watch keeping type management program that's currently going on all those trainings we've been doing and that will continue to do up to March next year is all geared towards preparing personnel for this exercise so we started that process already so in addition to the training as well as the conferences are being held, the planning conferences, the site visits all those are captured there in the phase zero but we want to do as much training as possible for this phase so that when we come to exercise we actually exercise in based on the scenarios and the injects coming in phase one the actual execution phase and this will start with the staging and Barbados so we bring all the troops to Barbados they get all the kit and equipment together they get their briefings they know what they're going to do do some integration training orientation and make sure that they're ready to fit for the operations before coming into the theater of operations which is St. Lucia all right having completed the RSOI and the various integration aspects in Barbados they'll move to St. Lucia and do a quick orientation again in country and then we move into the main events which is a series of activities to test or readiness as a RSS task force all right and we include all elements and phase two finally we have to evaluate and monitor and evaluate everything that we do to make sure that we are getting the lessons learned and see how we can improve going forward and hence this is the aspect that we will be doing the evaluations phase two and that will be led by our regional observer assessment team I'll kind of forward ahead of that so we do the proper evaluations and then the final reports will be shared with the chiefs and that will complete the three phases this is a quick look at now how we're going to roll out the action execution phase all right so between the third and the fifth the combined task force arrives in Barbados and that same day on the third the advanced party will come down to St. Lucia to start the preparations but between the third and the fifth the task force is doing the orientation, the integration equipment checks etc getting their briefings everything there in Barbados and then on the fifth then they're deployed to St. Lucia ready for action so to speak then the fifth to the seventh a quick orientation in St. Lucia the finalized finalized plans and then from the seventh to the tenth the actual exercise where we're getting all the different scenarios of the different activities security activities that they have to respond to so we all manage by the task force headquarters but obviously as you'll see in a later slide they're taking the orders from who the host nation because we come to support you and then we wrap up on the 11th with a hot wash which is a quick debrief among the troops and then we have some light activity a community event a relations event a school or some home or something but that's up to St. Lucia to advise us and then we do a cultural event to finish off the evening and then we do the formal closing on the 12th and return to our countries respective countries so that's just a brief snapshot but this is just broad right now we will work out the details in the subsequent planning meetings right this is a quick look at the scenario this is a broad theme of the security region for a crooked work up T-20 competition whether that's still happening or not that's not all concerned this exercise is what we plan it towards right and you will see from what we're doing in the exercise you can respond to any operation that's comp the drugs terrorism public mascot events we're preparing you for that also as a disclaimer the stats here this exercise related is nothing I got from the ICC it's all made up okay so that's what we're working on exercise scenarios exercise related scenarios right so anyhow it's done on the premise that there will be a major event for the event in the region and that we want the security region and I'm going to show you the research on that for some assistance I mean arts to host some of the preliminary games here in Senusha alright also through India that there will be another to increase the degree of difficulty there's another arts this country will also be hosting simultaneously those preliminary games so we have two the one in Senusha will be the main one the other one will be notional so you don't have to worry too much about that just to make you think right so throughout the unity exercise our intention is to be able to assist Senusha given the existing crime situation right plus to deal with everything that can happen or can go wrong with all of these people coming into your country from the international arena right which can bring their tracks with them okay so all that is what we have to look at and that's what we aim to do in Senusha so we'll be supporting Senusha and maintain the enormous security as well as supporting the games through the period that they will be hosted in Senusha now the good thing is we have two platforms to plan we have two exercise platforms to plan for this we have units but we also have trade wins so we thought it necessary to make the link between the trade the unity and the trade wins so hence that's why you will see that we will do the preliminary games in Senusha and then we we say that the semifinals will be held in Barbados so then we have to redeploy once we finish in Senusha we have to redeploy now on to Barbados to help Barbados now with the semifinal games right so that's where that's how we're going to link the two exercises alright next slide please right this just shows some of the different injects or scenarios that can take place surrounding the actual broad theme so for example you can have things like a major gang crime incident you can have a public order at any of those mass crowd events you can have a terrorist attack remember we're going to have a lot of cool ships in port and those kind of things so terrorism is something we have to watch human trafficking and the normal increase in drug trafficking etc so this is a number of things that can happen given that there will be increased flights in the area, increased vessels cruise vessels especially and also different mass crowd activities apart from the actual sporting event like for example a music festival which would attract a big crowd as well so these things that could be thrown in but these will all be refined because we have a separate conference to do with the scenario development alright next slide please it's a great snapshot snapshot sorry of the forces that we participate in this year again we'll be fine tuned but at the moment we're looking about 187 but as we continue to plan it it will be refined alright next slide alright so we have some key players key appointments here for the exercise and you can see from the top the officer conducting well first of all let me backtrack the officer scheduling the exercise it's Commodore Shirley who'll give the permissionary direction for us to plan the exercise and then I am the officer conducting the exercise and Lieutenant Colonel Beltran here is the exercise director we're in a position now that the Commissioner acting with Assessors because since he's moved up we have to find someone to be exercise director but I'm sure you got that in hand and the good ACP Thomas well I'll tell you they're different is the assistant exercise director okay and we have a team of persons the head of the validation Lieutenant Colonel Ford as you see there sitting around the table and he would and then we have the core planet team which is my granny's colleague and ACP cannot from the Grenada police force and others both online who are not here alright so we have the core planet team some mentors validation team to support Colonel Ford and also the RSS assistant with support exercise support and finally the higher command or higher control will come then from the side of the joint operations we made up of a joint team of all the services there alright next slide just a graph of what I would have shown you but focusing primarily on the exercise appointments making sure we cover all the main components very critical and there's the logistics planning aspect of it technical support alright next slide please this is a broad structure of framework showing the relationship between the headquarters so you have the host nation government headquarters at the top alright supported by RSS off to the left we performing the team you saw earlier the last stage the exercise control so we acting there as the persons controlling the exercise but the joint operations and command center they're already under the host nation government will be the ones that coordinate and plan it and give directions to the joint task force which is merely honor it under it and then under the joint task force you see the various components component commands you have the police operations company the marketing operations company defense force operations company right those are the component commands working for the CTF headquarters and obviously you must be supported by a opposing force person will be acting as troublemakers criminals that's what we want to that's the up for the opposing force next slide please as in anything we can't do it alone we must do it with our international support and we welcome our international brothers and sisters to support us and they be invited to assist us and to attend as observers in different capacities I heard Mr. Alexander mentioned the opposing force and we will be reaching out to them obviously to support us going forward thank you for that the final slide there this is the proposed timeline so you will see that the preliminary ones we had so we're now at the June 19 to 23 that's where we are now at the initial planning conference moving through we have the scenario development in August right and then we have we're going to have UNEX but only for the UNEX command post exercise but that's only for the command team the headquarter team and the intention is to bring them here to go through a lot of the pieces that they will do when they actually come back in April so it's to give them a rehearsal a dry rehearsal right so that's that UNEX in August the main planning conference in September and then the final planning conference in December and part of that visit will include a final site visit the conference that we have everything that would be good to go in terms of the training locations, accommodations etc etc and then big day 30 to 14th 30 to 14th execution right and then we wrap up in June, July with the actual reports so that's the synopsis there of the UNEX exercise I want to thank all of you so far for the support you have rendered us and we will continue to work together because as I said it's a joint exercise designed, developed by us designed by us for us the region Thank you very much Lieutenant Commander Brian Roberts Director of Training for that detailed exercise overview I'm sure that those who may not have been up to speed with the UNEX exercise we can now relate to what is going on so thank you very much for that at this point in time I would like to ask everyone to help me welcome Honorable Dr. Virginia Albert Poyot the Minister for the Ministry of Public Service Home Affairs Labor and Gender Affairs who is here representing the Prime Minister of St. Lucia as she gives us delivers the feature address Ma'am I'm trying to fit in a shoe that I hardly find an opportunity to do and that is to represent the Prime Minister of St. Lucia I want to offer an apology on behalf of the Prime Minister who is out of state and I know he should be flying in this morning or sometime today I just want you to bear with me that being here this morning is almost like committing a crime so you'll have to arrest me on the basis that today is Cabinet Day and the Prime Minister considered Cabinet to be sacred and we do not have any other activity on that day however he has assigned me a task on that very day so it's no longer criminal activity it is a guest's blessings I look at the activity we have here which speaks to strengthening security in the region and we have the the phrase I don't know how many decades or centuries it has been around but it speaks to united we stand divided we fall and we also speak to unity is strength and I think it's on that basis that we are gathered here today to address a very serious matter I have also remembered mentioning in other forum that we as persons in administration we find all excuses why we cannot come together we find all reasons why we cannot dot the i's and cross the t's however our criminals do not go through this formality they have dotted all the i's and cross all the t's so they are more united than us and on that basis I see the need for this gathering today to be more than critical because we have to remain united in order to fight those with criminal minds and criminal intention those of us law abiding citizens we must remain united ladies and gentlemen I wish to extend as I mentioned my deepest apology for the prime minister who is unable to be here I know he would have liked to be here however he has expressed confidence in me to represent him and this I shall so do on behalf of the honorable prime minister Philip J. Pierre and minister for finance, economic development and youth economy and minister for justice and national security it is my distinct privilege to address you and to welcome you our visiting friends to St. Lucia the prime minister and the government of St. Lucia want to thank the regional security system RSS for choosing St. Lucia to launch its exercise unity initiative this morning I think it is very telling for us the prime minister and the government St. Lucia wish to further thank the regional security system for responding to our country's call for assistance in March this year by deploying security personnel on the ground to help us combat the escalation in violent gun crimes in the south of the island the presence and operations of RSS officers in support of our royals and Lucia police force has bolstered our human resource capacity and technical capabilities in handling the crime situation since the arrival of RSS officers the unparalleled escalation in violent gun crimes had abated significantly and we want to place on record our gratitude for your invaluable support over the last few months you will recall that in April this year the situation with violent crime in the region triggered a meeting of curriculum heads of government in port of Spain Trinidad to examine crime as a public health issue the heads recognize the growing threat to regional security from escalating violent crime including organized transnational criminal enterprises in response the meeting decided among other matters to take collective regional action to stem the inflow of illicit firearms and ammunition in the region at that meeting the prime minister made the call for more than a law enforcement response but an approach that is comprehensive and multi-dimensional which seeks to find and eradicate the root causes of violence in the region further to this call in the 2023-24 budget presentation the prime minister coined the theme health and security the pillars for sustainability he stressed that in combating crime a societal response including family church, academia culture and sporting personalities minority political parties and the wider society is absolutely necessary in light of the government's commitment to strengthen security in the country this exercise is of great importance and priority to the prime minister and his cabinet of ministers a couple weeks ago at the US Caribbean leaders meeting in Nassau Bahamas on June 8 the US announced a few activities in pursuit of our shared prosperity and security agenda which include security and firearms trafficking a high priority area for Caribbean region in light of current state of affairs in response to a request which was tabled at previous summit the US government made a firm commitment to disrupting firearms trafficking in the Caribbean by interdicting illicit shipments of firearms and ammunition and holding offenders accountable and bringing them to justice in May one month after the caricum meeting at the meeting of regional police commissioners from the port of Spain Trinidad and Tobago minister of national security Fitzroy Hines gave some chilling statistics by stating that many countries of the region have surpassed previous records with of them falling in the top 20 of the world's most dangerous countries based on high rates of homicide per capita the follow-up question and action is to find out why is the situation so serious in the region and what we need to do to reverse this negative trend in the region he further stated the rate of violent deaths in caricum member states is almost three times the global average and added that firearms are used in 75% of all homicides in caricum of great concern to us is that young people between the ages of 17 to 25 years old are mainly the victims and perpetrators of the gun related crimes in the region closer to home St Lucia is a small country of about 180,000 people and the prime minister and the government of St Lucia believe that one homicide is too many for us tourism is the mainstay of our economy and as such a scourge of crime can threaten the livelihoods of our people we want St Lucia to be a country where residents can live work and raise their families in dignity and without fear and visitors can enjoy in a friendly and peaceful environment Caribbean leaders have long advocated for the Caribbean region to be a zone of peace in terms of firearms conflict and war and a region for peaceful enjoyment of life for all peace is essential to progress and without peace there can be no lasting prosperity and unantenable situation begs for all hands to join together to fight crime, the crime situation in this regard the regional security system the main regional security agency for Barberas and the OECS countries has a critical role to play in the fight to combat a bit and redress our crime and security challenges whilst we have mainly occupied we have been mainly occupied with crime and security issues over the past few months our focus will soon shift to include responding to natural disasters as the hurricane season is now upon us it is so timely and relevant for this exercise and so St Lucia is pleased to host to the launch of exercise unity one of the key strategic initiatives of the RSS which is geared to assisting participating countries in improving responses to natural or artificial disasters transnational security threats and ultimately to improve national regional security over the years when called on to assist the RSS has responded admirably by providing critical support to member states in disaster emergency responses to include provisions of logistics restoration of utilities transportation of food water and other supplies such as rescue and protection of lives and property exercise unity provides a tested mechanism for the RSS to fine tune and strengthen its response capabilities in readiness for future natural or man-made disasters the training exercise outlined earlier indicates that we are actually focusing on building capacity and many times we focus on capacity with regards to infrastructure but human resource capacity is the most important resource that we have and as minister with responsibility for home affairs this has been one of the areas that we have strengthened in that department so that many times we see fighting crime as giving the officers the tools and ammunition to go out there but we have not addressed the working conditions of these officers I have already indicated that we may not have the resources to compensate them so they have to look at their work more as national service however we have seen that these officers need to be treated with a level of dignity the level of respect and the level of support and for this reason Prime Minister having identified security as one of his national priority is actually investing heavily in our officers by giving them the tools that they need and supporting them in developing the skills and abilities that they need to carry out their work on this note I want to commend the RSS for choosing St. Lucia as the base when I looked at the slide presentation and I said we are in for something great and I look forward to the implementation of this program and I encourage our officers to take full advantage of this opportunity because it is one that was very much lacking in terms of skills in terms of abilities and we have new recruits that come in and they will definitely begin to benefit from this opportunity as someone who believes heavily in human resource development I know we are going to see great things happening in St. Lucia and we will continue to support our regional initiative to ensure that this program is a great success I want to commend Guyana for coming on board because we have so many countries in the Caribbean the wisdom of coming together to secure our space is well thought of it has the blessings of the government, the prime minister and the people of St. Lucia and I can guarantee you that you will get our full support the prime minister and the government of St. Lucia want to thank the European Union immensely for sponsoring this important interagency and multinational exercise and for all ongoing development assistance given to the sub region in ending on behalf of the government and the people of St. Lucia the prime minister I wish RSS exercise unity a very successful lunch and trust that your delegation will be able to find some time to enjoy the pleasures of St. Lucia I thank you Thank you Honorable Dr. Virginia Albert Poyot for those inspiring words Honorable Doctor I would like to reiterate your words in saying let us remain united I think that hit home when you mentioned those words and I look forward to the next nine months where we could remain united and keep the planning cycle alive for unity exercise 2024 At this moment I would like to ask the Executive Director of the Regional Security System and the Commissioner of Police Acting of Royal St. Lucia Police Force to kindly come forward as we would like to show in order to demonstrate the importance of unity exercise we have created a plaque as a small to signify the importance of unity exercise and we have engraved the dates of the exercise on that plaque and we intend to hand this over to represent somewhat of a button to every host nation for every single unity exercise so Executive Director if you would assist me in hand delivering this plaque to the Commissioner of Police of Royal St. Lucia Police Force the host of unity exercise 2024 Could you please give them a round of applause as we now declare unity exercise now officially open