The British Army along with the Belize Defence Force are hosting this year's joint civil military cooperation training. For one week, members of the Belize Defense Force as well as police officers will be undergoing training in disaster management and preparedness. This year's exercise is called civil bridge and is a follow up to last year's exercise. Major Alan Edwards of the British armed forces explains what the 19 officers will be learning over the next 5 days.
Major Alan Edwards,
"Many armies around the world are developing a capability in civil military cooperation and we recognize that civilian dimension, civil organizations, are actually very important in any crisis or a national disaster and that the military alone cannot provide a lasting solution. So how to take account of the civil dimension and therefore any solution that is arrived at, is a more lasting solution than if it was just a military solution which might collapse as soon as the military pulled out.
To give you an example, we would be doing negotiation training, dealing with the media training, and training in project management. So practical skills like this, use of interpreters for example so people who are up on the borders might be able to use that kind of skills both in Belize, but also it would be useful if they were deployed abroad as part of an international response to a disaster somewhere.
The things that we stress here is that it is important to build the relationships before the disaster so that when the disaster arrives you can react quickly and effectively in a coordinated and comprehensive approach. So we stress the importance of building relationships, liaison, exchanging information, joint planning-that kind of thing."
Civil Bridge 2006 ends on Friday with presentation of certificates to the participants.
