Friday, December 1, 2006

BELMOPAN, Belize (UPI): Belize will host the multinational, two-week long Tradewinds 2007 military exercise next May.

News Five Belize reported that more than 1,000 troops from Caribbean nations, Canada, the United States and Britain will participate in the exercise.

The Tradewinds multinational exercises have been held for 23 years. In the past training his largely focused on jungle warfare and regional cooperation, but for the last three years the emphasis has shifted increasingly towards military operations in urban environments

Belize Defense Force Chief of Staff Lt. Col. Reuel Black said, "This time we are doing civil affairs, which is civil military cooperation from a British point of view, but the Americans call it civil affairs. But it's dealing with the community, hearts and minds, working with the community in disaster, in social activities and things like that. We'll also be doing some unarmed combat and some maritime operations."

According to US Marine Corps Lt. Col. John Zotto, "We have one team that's going to be doing civil affairs training. Basically, if a hurricane hits here how do you react? Who do you have to contact? Where do you get supplies from? Who do you talk to? That's one portion. Another portion is basic marksmanship training on the range, another portion is non-lethal weapons training instead of having to injure somebody in a situation, are there different ways of taking them down? And then the last one is martial arts training."

  Most popular articles: viewed, printed and e-mailed

  Printable version