OSCE Approves Georgian Borderguard Training
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| OSCE envoy speaks of training program details. |
Ambassador Roy Reeve, the Head of OSCE Mission to Georgia, convened a news conference shortly after this decision on April 14 and discussed the details of the program, which has been vocally pushed by the Georgian side after the OSCE suspended its Border Monitoring Operation (BMO) at the Russo-Georgian border last December as a result of Russia’s veto.
Roy Reeve said that the Training Assistance Programme for Georgian Border Guards (TAP) will last until the end of 2005 with the possibility to prolong it for four more months in 2006.
“The budget of the program is 2.6 million euros this year. And if we continue, it will need another 1.5-2 million euros,” Ambassador Reeve said at a news conference in Tbilisi.
The team of 50 personnel, including 30 international experts, will implement the training, which will also take place on location, i.e. in the mountains from the OSCE Mission Headquarters in Tbilisi, as well as from four other regional centres in Lilo, Kazbegi, Lagodekhi, and Omalo.
The training program will specifically target the following:
• Rescue operation in mountainous areas and security rules. This includes helicopter operations and pilot practical training and rescue techniques
• Planning and management of border units during the day and night
• Training in patrolling, reporting and observation techniques
• Maintenance rules of special equipment
• Map reading
• Communications
• First Aid
• Legal aspects of border policing
“We will be using [in the course of training] the same kind of observation equipment that we had in BMO,” Roy Reeve said.
“We will be also doing practical training for Georgian border guards, non-commission officers, and junior officer in the field. We’ll be taking them into the mountains and working with them in order to pass on skills and experience that we had developed over the last four-five years [while running the BMO],” he added.
He said that the program will run in close cooperation with those countries which are already bilaterally providing assistance to the Georgian border guard service, including Germany, Turkey and the United States.
“We will be coordinating our activity with them and if there is a requirement for additional equipment then it will be supplied by one of the other donor countries to the Georgian border guards,” the Ambassador stated.
He underlined that this training program “is not a substitute to Border Monitoring Operation” which was implemented by the OSCE on the Chechen, Ingush and Daghestani sections of Russo-Georgian border in 1999.
“In the discussion in Vienna today [at the OSCE Permanent Council] the Georgian delegation repeated that although they appreciate and are looking forward to this project, they will still continue to look for other international assistance to monitor border,” Roy Reeve said; however added, that “the position has been made clear in Vienna that there will be no consensus to OSCE Border Monitoring Operation.” Russia has once already vetoed discussion of issue to prolong the BMO’s mandate last December.