Strengthening Fiji’s own defence and border facilities topped talks this week between Fiji’s Defence Ministry and a visiting delegation from the Republic of Indonesia.
The Ministry of Defence, National Security and Immigration met with the visiting Indonesian delegation to look at ways of boosting the Ministry’s services in areas of combating transitional crimes at our borders and capacity building including training within the Fiji Police force. The Ministry would also like to engage on lessons learnt and best practices through information exchange on areas of policing, military and Boarder control from the Indonesian Government considering their diverse population and geographical spread.
The Ministry’s Permanent Secretary Osea Cawaru pointed out that the meeting was a follow up to a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2011 by the Minister for Defence, National Security and Immigration for the Fiji Police Force and the Indonesian Police.
“We discussed how the Fiji Police can work with the Indonesian police on information sharing, exchange community policing programs, cyber crime, narcotic and drugs bureau and encountering terrorism at our borders,” Mr Cawaru said.
“Profiling and surveillance programs, work attachments for both countries and how the two countries can share experiences and assistance on areas like document examination techniques including document examination laboratory with training and visa reciprocal arrangements are other new areas that we are requesting,” the Permanent Secretary said.
Mr Cawaru said today’s meeting was indicative of the Indonesian government’s support towards up-skilling the Fiji Police Force and Immigration in ensuring that national security is maintained.
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