Planners put final touches on Tradewinds 2007

For the next two days, soldiers from the Caribbean, the United States, and the United Kingdom will be in Belize to put the finishing touches on plans for Tradewinds 2007. The annual military exercise is being hosted by the Belize Defence Force and will take place over fourteen days in May. This week local organisers and their international counterparts are going over the details, making sure the necessary supplies and services will be in place when the operation starts.

Major Oscar Mira, Planning Coordinator, Tradewinds
“As you know, logistics plays a big role in the exercise. If we get our logistics right, then the exercise will go smoother so we have all the logistics in place, the accommodation, what training each company will be doing, how they will get the different companies or different people from different Caribbean countries to Belize and where they will be picked up; everything. This is the final planning conference and we want to have everything right for the exercise.”

“Apart from the exercise, apart from the military aspect of the exercise, we also promoting Belize as a destination to come and visit and we just had a presentation with the Belize Tourism Board and a lot of the participants are really interested. We have given them three days at the end of the exercise as liberty days, where they can go and not just come to Belize on a military exercise, but come to Belize and visit different places. Most of the participants have been very, very glad that they have these three days and are taking up the offer to go and visit different places.”

Janelle Chanona
“So we making sure we get some tourism dollars out of this no?”

Major Oscar Mira
“Well yeah, we can call it military tourism and we are doing that. It’s very important for us not to just come and work but also to have some time to visit Belize, there is so much to offer.”

Tradewinds 2007 will take place at Price Barracks in Ladyville, the gun range in Hattieville, and at the Princess Hotel in Belize City. According to Major Mira, some sixteen countries have already confirmed their participation in the exercise. The 2008 edition of Tradewinds is scheduled to take place in the Dominican Republic.