Today the US Embassy's Export Control and Related Border Security Program handed over much needed radiation inspection equipment to the Customs and Excise Department. The donation, valued at about $45,000 USD, consists of equipment that will help the Customs Department in identifying radioactive materials that could be harmful to people, or used as a component in a weapon of mass destruction. We spoke to Regional Export Control and Border Security Advisor, Greg Bates about the donation...
Greg Bates - Reg. Export Control & Border Security
"Weapons of mass destruction is the proliferation globally and our efforts by the global community to prevent the proliferation into unsavoury characters or countries that are trying to develop a military grade, chemical or biological or nuclear logical programs. There is also an issue to terrorism when we have organizations such as ISIS and Al-Qaida who have publicly announced their intent to develop and create radiological dirty bombs, chemical weapons and we've seen use of that. So part of the expise program is to help prevent that by number one preventing the illicit transfer of legitimate equipment for the private sector into the hands of individuals that can use the same equipment to create chemical, biological or radiological nuclear programs, that's the first part there and to do that we have to equipment and we need to have training and we to have commitment by government. So we work with governments on legislative development, regulatory development to ensure that they are able to implement Security Council resolution 15:40 as well as ensure that officers have the training to detect, to recognize and to interdict or intercept illicit transfers. It’s an issue of not only the global movement for counter terrorism and non-proliferation means but it’s also I think important to understand public safety."
"We've have several cases around the world, old discarded medical equipment for example that have very strong radiation sources has actually contaminated and killed people was a case in Brazil many years ago that killed several people. We've have cobalt 60 stolen off the highway and frankly radiation doesn't look like anything, it doesn't smell like anything so unlike trying to teach officers how to detect maybe a chemical source through a smell or site, radiation if it's hidden, its hidden. So the point of the radiation detectors is to ensure that teams have that. They can protect themselves, they can protect their community and they can contribute in a global struggle against proliferation. The isotope identified that we denoted is simply to identify that source, the radiation detector itself tells you it’s the source and tells you how strong itself. At that point the officers are trained to isolate it and then to determine what it is, whether a person receives high doses of radiation therapy, medical radiation therapy or it’s an illicit source as we've encountered in Eastern Europe and other locations.
"The last but not least are the tool kits which are essentially toolkits helped to open boxes. We know that the resources are limited in many countries in this region so about year ago we elected to create tool kits specifically for border police, mobile interdiction teams and customs officers across the region so this is the first donation that we've conducted in quite a while for Belize and it's simply for that purpose to help them. Police department, mobile interdiction team and customs to ensure they have the tools they need to do their jobs."
Members of the Customs Department as well as the police's Mobile INTERDICTION Unit have also been used to properly use the new equipment.
Email
Print