Commander of U.S. Southern Command visits Belize

Over the years, the Belize Defence Force has established a strong working relationship with the United States Military. Support for both the B.D.F. and the Coast Guard is coordinated through the U.S. Southern Command. Today the man in charge of that division was in Belize for a familiarization tour with local officials.

Admiral James Stavridis, Commander, U.S. Southern Command
“The number one thing we want to do in the immediate future is help this newly formed Coast Guard by providing them the right kind of boats, the right kind of communications equipment. I think we’re working to provide some communications equipment and some vehicles for the B.D.F. So we’re gonna continue to work on the equipment side and secondly we want to do a good job of both training and working with both the Coast Guard and the B.D.F.”

Support for the B.D.F. will include technical and financial assistance for the new headquarters of the Coast Guard in the Belizean Beach area.

General Cedric Borland, Commander, Belize National Coast Guard
“We have acquired one point seven five acres of land there from the government and we’re putting together at this time, with the support of Ministry of Works, the building plans for the main headquarters. That again is a project funded by the United States and I must say Admiral Stavridis, the commander of SouthCom is directly involved with that because his core of engineers from there are actually supervising that project.”

In addition to the military assistance, local officials are also asking the U.S. Army to finance community based projects.

Col. Dario Tapia, Commandant, B.D.F.
“We are involved with also standing up a portion to help with the youths. So we’re also asking them to support us in getting that programme off the ground because we are starting what we call the Belize Defence Force Youth Challenge Programme which involves funding. So we’re asking them for funding in that area as well.”

Lloyd Gillett, C.E.O., Ministry of National Security
“One of the major projects that we have over the next year is establishing the light engineer company which is being funded out of the Global Peacekeeping Initiative, G.P.O.I., Peacekeeping Operations Initiative. We’ve started with the set up of the company, we have some of the equipment.”

Admiral Stavridis leaves the country tomorrow. Reporting for News Five, Marion Ali.

Before leaving Belize, Admiral Stavridis met with Prime Minister Dean Barrow, Minister of National Security Carlos Perdomo and B.D.F. Commander Dario Tapia in Belmopan.