Focus on security of small states

BRIDGETOWN — National security concerns of small island states such as those of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) are to be addressed at a three-day high-level meeting organised by the Organisation of American States (OAS) in St Vincent and the Grenadines from January 8-10.

It is the second such event following the one held in El Salvador in February 1998 and is considered to be of much relevance in preparation for the OAS Special Security Conference scheduled for May in Mexico.

Arrangements for next week’s meeting, including the draft agenda, were recently approved by the OAS Hemispheric Committee on Security.

The plan is to have the meeting approve what is to be known as the “Declaration of Kingstown on Security of Small Island States” forwarded to the forthcoming special conference in Mexico.

The multi-dimensional and transnational nature and scope of security and the challenges posed for small hemispheric states, including terrorism, drug trafficking, gun-running and money laundering will be among issues for deliberations, the Observer was told, with a view to ensuring effective co-ordinating strategies.

Addressing the opening session of the Kingstown meeting will be host Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and OAS Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria.

Among interventions from Caricom participants will be those of Lancelot Selman, head of the Community’s Task Force on Crime and Security; and Brigadier Rudyard Lewis, regional co-ordinator of the Regional Security System (RSS).

Two doctor brothers die within two days

PORT-OF-SPAIN — Two brothers, both medical doctors, died from heart attacks within two days apart, forcing changes in funeral arrangements and leaving the local medical fraternity sharing the shock and grief of their families.

First to collapse and die from suspected heart failure at the weekend was Dr Amrit Roopnarinesingh for whose scheduled funeral on Monday, his 65 year-old brother, Syam, was preparing the eulogy when he died at his home around 3:30 am on Monday morning.

Syam was Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the Mount Hope Medical Complex. He was due to retire yesterday.

His grief-stricken wife, Juliet, admitted that her husband did have a heart problem but explained that he was not ill and looked quite well at the time of his death.

The sudden deaths of the two doctor brothers are the latest in a series of recent tragedies to afflict the Roopnarinesingh family, according to a report in yesterday’s Express.

A nephew of the family died in an accident in October when his BMW car crashed at Chaguaramas. A few weeks earlier a sister of the brothers had died from a heart attack.

Hunt for T&T teenage cop killer

PORT-OF-SPAIN — Trinidad and Tobago crime sleuths were yesterday on the hunt for a 14 year-old lad who they said shot and killed a cop then stole his gun.

The slain policeman, Constable Keiron Parks, 38, who was attached to the Court and Processing Branch of the Police Force, was shot at point-blank range in the back by the suspected teenager on Monday.

He was killed after stopping by a parlour at the corner of Ajodha Street and Don Miguel Road to serve a court summons on a young man of the area.

Owner of the parlour, Elizabeth Joseph, told the police that from what she gathered, Parks had already served the summons to the “fellah at the back yard” when the suspect suddenly appeared and shot him in the back.

His death increased the total number of murders for the year to 171.