Linton urges RSS member governments to stay away from Dominica for general election
Opposition Leader, Lennox Linton, has issued a call to regional governments who are part of the Regional Security System (RSS) stay away from the situation in Dominica and allow locals to deal with the matter.
There are reports, that given the increased protest action in Dominica leading up the December 6, 2019 general elections, that Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit may have asked the RSS for help.
“The next few days and weeks are going to be very interesting. We expect the international community to continue keeping its eyes of Dominica. We are also asking the governments of CARICOM, to refrain from sending members of the Regional Security System (RSS) to Dominica to help the local police to brutalize citizens of the Commonwealth of Dominica simply expressing their democratic right to protest for [their] rights,” Linton said.
He also called on the international community to pay attention to what is happening in Dominica.
“You have one man and a small group of people fighting against the right of the people to “free and fair elections.”We have made our positions known to the international community and we are receiving favourable feedbacks from the friends of Dominica around the globe,” he stated.
The Regional Security System was created in 1982 to counter threats to the stability of the region in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
On 29 October four members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) namely, Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent & the Grenadines signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Barbados to provide for “mutual assistance on request”. The signatories agreed to prepare contingency plans and assist one another, on request, in national emergencies, prevention of smuggling, search and rescue, immigration control, fishery protection, customs and excise control, maritime policing duties, protection of off-shore installations, pollution control, national and other disasters and threats to national security. St. Kitts & Nevis joined following independence in 1983, and Grenada followed two years later after Operation Urgent Fury, a combined U.S. and RSS invasion of the country. The MOU was updated in 1992 and the system acquired juridical status on 5 March 1996 under the Treaty which was signed at St. Georges Grenada.
The RSS initially started as a U.S. instrument to combat the spread of Communism in the Caribbean region. As of 2001, the RSS further cooperates with the CARICOM Regional Task Force on Crime and Security (CRTFCS).
