21 NATIONS MEET TO IMPROVE SECURITY AND RESPONSE CAPABILITIES
CANSEC 22: Improving Joint Security and Response Capabilities
Media Release: BDF Media and Communications, US Southcom| 7 April 2022
The Caribbean Nations Security Conference (CANSEC 22) a two-day conference, co-hosted by the Barbados Defence Force and SOUTHCOM, focused on ways to enhance security cooperation to deal with a host of regional challenges and threats, like the continuing effects of COVID-19, natural disasters, climate change, cyberattacks and competition between authoritarianism and democracy.
“[The Caribbean] is a vitally important region to SOUTHCOM, the U.S. government, and the American people. With authoritarianism on the rise, protecting human rights, and helping our democracies deliver for our people is more important than ever before,” Richardson told attendees during the conference’s opening ceremony.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley spoke during the opening of CANSEC 22 and highlighted the importance of security cooperation.
“Much has been said this morning already with respect to the common threats that we now face. I don’t think any of us needs to be reminded of it, because we live it each and every day,” said Mottley. “But our role is not only cooperation. Our role is also to be able to give confidence to our populations that we have this, or as we say in Barbados and the Caribbean: we got this.”
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In addition to the United States and Barbados, defense leaders from Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago took part in CANSEC 22.
Representatives from Canada, Mexico, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands also took part, along with representatives from regional organizations like the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, the Caribbean Community Implementation Agency for Crime and Security, the Regional Security System, the Inter-American Defense Board and the Inter-American Defense College.
Regional Threats and Regional Cooperation
During the CANSEC 22 opening ceremony, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Western Hemisphere Daniel Erickson spoke about the threats and challenges facing the Caribbean and what the Department of Defense is doing to work with Caribbean partners to keep the region a “zone of peace.”
“The challenges before us are many, but the way forward is through trust and cooperation. Only through building trust and deepening cooperation will we be able to meet these challenges successfully,” said Erickson.
Richardson said transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) pose “one of the most imminent threats” in the region.
Commodore (Cdre) Errington Shurland enlisted in the Barbados Defence Force in February 1984.
Colonel Glyne Grannum joined the Barbados Defence Force (BDF) on 18 October 1985 and underwent career development training at the Canadian Forces Officer Candidate School, Chilliwack and the Combat Training Centre, Gagetown New Brunswick, Canada. He subsequently attended the Infantry Training Centre and the Signal Wing in Warminster, UK (PCBC and RSO Courses respectively), the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in San Remo, Italy; the Lester Pearson Canadian Peacekeeping Centre, the Canadian Land Forces Command and Staff College, Kingston, the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College, Toronto, the National Defence University of the People’s Liberation Army People’s Republic of China and the Centre for Hemispheric Defence Studies, National Defence University, Washington. He also attended a Defence Resources Management programme at National Defence Headquarters, Ottawa, Canada. In addition to being a qualified infantry officer, Col Grannum is a qualified Regimental Signals Officer and a former Operations Officer and Finance Officer of the BDF.
Colonel Banfield joined the Barbados Battalion of the South Caribbean Force in 1941 having just left the Cadet Corps at Combermere School, and was granted a commission as a Second Lieutenant in 1942. He was a Platoon Commander and a Company Commander during the war and served in Barbados, Dominica (as part of the Gale Force), St Lucia and St Vincent.
Warrant Officer Class 1 Colin Marshall is a graduate of the St Michael, and was born on the 5 November 1969 and enlisted in the Barbados Defence Force on 16 August 1994. He was promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal in August 1997, Corporal in 1999, Sergeant in 2007, Color Sergeant in 2014, Warrant Officer Class Two in 2017 and Warrant Officer Class One in 2020. He was Most Outstanding Student on Junior Leadership Course in 1998, the Most Outstanding Student on Junior Non Commissioned Officer Cadre in Jamaica in 2000, best at Leadership on the Search Adviser Course in Jamaica in 2007 and the Most Outstanding Student on the Warrant Officer Course in Jamaica in 2015.
