Top officers from the Cayman Islands Regiment have met with their counterparts from UK overseas territories from around the region to discuss how they could work together in a crisis.
The results of the meeting could see Cayman troops deployed alongside others from the region and Bermuda in response to disasters such as the recent Hurricane Melissa, a massive storm that devastated Jamaica.
Major Graham Muir, the regiment’s training and operations officer, said the December meeting in Turks and Caicos was “a chance to discuss how each regiment plans, prepares and deploys in response to the myriad of challenges facing the region, be they climate or security based.
“Options for future joint disaster relief deployments were discussed, as were procurement and training options to better enable cost-saving and generate interoperability.”
Cayman training ground
Cayman soldiers at the same time conducted Operation Soter, a joint training exercise featuring Cayman instructors, with the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force.
Muir added that Cayman’s training exercise Event Horizon, held at the start of the year, could be built on and used to help the country hold humanitarian assistance and disaster relief training courses in Cayman for services personnel from the Caribbean/Atlantic area.
The meeting included the Royal Bermuda Regiment, the senior military unit in the wider region, The Turks and Caicos Regiment, the Royal Montserrat Defence Force, and the Falkland Islands Defence Force, from the South Atlantic.
He added the relationship with the UK meant that overseas territories forces could also benefit from training in Britain.
Muir, an experienced British Army officer before he joined the Cayman Islands Regiment, said an agreement had already been struck with the Royal Bermuda Regiment to share training courses in the UK next year.
He added that the Bermuda force, which celebrated its 60th anniversary this year and has decades of experience in hurricane relief at home and overseas, was considering sending a team to Jamaica to help with reconstruction and that Cayman troops could join the effort.
Long-term recovery
Muir said, “One of the first lessons coming out of Jamaica is you can’t just focus on immediate assistance. It’s the weeks and months and years of recovery.”
He highlighted the largely reservist nature of overseas territories forces meant that many Cayman recruits were skilled tradespeople such as carpenters and had vital skills for reconstruction efforts.
Muir added the response from regiment personnel during the efforts to contain avian flu had been “superb” and that it had acted as a force multiplier for government.
He said, “It’s a really unique and handy organisation.”
The two-day meeting in Turks and Caicos also featured a briefing from the British government’s armed forces minister, Al Carns, a former senior officer in the elite Royal Marines and former UK Chief of the General Staff General Sir Patrick Sanders, who is also honorary colonel of the Turks and Caicos Regiment.
The UK defence attaché to the Caribbean, Lieutenant Colonel Keith Brewster, and Cayman Islands Regiment Honorary Colonel Major General Lord Mark Lancaster, who was armed forces minister in the previous UK government, also attended the meeting.
Related Videos
