THE JDF COAST GUARD MOVING TOWARDS 2000

The JDF Coast Guard was formed in 1963 as the maritime arm of the Jamaica Defence Force. From a mere adjunct of the JDF, with simple and ill-defined roles, the Unit has had its missions and operating programmes expanded to meet Jamaica’s growing maritime needs.

Unfortunately, the Units growth has been directed more by mission and programme creep than by a careful and deliberate action plan designed to identify and implement just what it is the JDF Coast Guard is about.

Following is a framework for future Coast Guard activities: The unit’s raison d’etre can be broken down into four primary missions: law enforcement; maritime safety; defence readiness; and nation building. Several operating programmes accomplished these missions.

Law enforcement

The JDF Coast Guard enforces Jamaica law in all waters under Jamaica’s jurisdiction. It is to be noted that Jamaica ‘s water are approximately 274,000 km or roughly 26 times the size of the island’s landmass. In addition to enforcing Jamaican law at sea, the Coast Guard enforces regional and international agreements that are pertinent to Jamaica’s waters.

Maritime safety

In its maritime safety role, the Coast Guard aids maritime and property in distress (search and rescue) at sea. The JDF CG is also concerned with port safety and security, a role in which it manages port safety, port security and environmental concerns. Other JDF CG responsibilities include: vessel traffic management and control of vessel movement to enhance safety; marine inspection (port state control) to minimise deaths, injuries, property loss and environmental damage by enforcing standards and regulations governing vessel operations; promoting boating safety to reduce the number of lives lost, persons injured and property damaged in fishing and environmental response to minimise damage from pollutants released into the marine environment.

Defence readiness

The JDF CG is also charged with maintaining constant operational readiness to carry out offensive operations.

Nation-building

In its nation-building role, the unit provides support to government programmes and projects. The unit therefore provides disaster relief locally and regionally and assist hydrographics surveying by providing vessels as platforms for hydrographers. Additionally, the Coast Guard provides platforms to aid marine scientific research and fisheries research and development. In its role of assisting training and education, the Coast Guard provides platform and staff to support the Jamaica Maritime Institute, the University of the West Indies and other educational institutions. Implicit in the foregoing missions and programmes is the recognition that the Coast Guard can and should play a leading role in maritime affairs.

Its position in national life will lie somewhere on the continuum between the current situation where the Unit has a full, partial or no role in the programmes mentioned earlier and a situation where the Unit can be developed and given full mandate for all maritime programmes and actives. Its positioning is a decision for Government to make.

From the foregoing some may accuse the author of ’empire building’. However, the real issue to be addressed is this; given Jamaica’s expanding maritime requirements, can the country a afford multiplicity of agencies and departments, each pursuing its single-sector marine activity? If the answer to that question is ‘no,’ then the JDF Coast Guard is the only agency with the potential capacity and multi-mission approach to meet the challenge in moving towards and beyond the year 2000.