Africa-Press – Cape verde. The Atlantic Center, an initiative of the Portuguese State that brings together 23 countries, defends the creation, in Cape Verde, with the support of national partners, of a training center in boarding, search and seizure techniques on ships.
The objective is to “strengthen the action and prevention capacity” of the authorities of the different countries facing the Atlantic, in waters through which illicit traffic passes, the Rear Admiral of the Portuguese Navy, Nuno de Noronha Bragança, coordinator of the Center for Atlântico, during a visit to Praia.
The trip to the capital aims to strengthen political dialogue for the execution of projects, including the plan for installing the training center.
Just last week, Cape Verde deported four Spaniards detained on the island of Santiago, after they fled a vessel intercepted in the Atlantic with 330 million euros of cocaine on board.
Cape Verde is one of the founding countries of the Atlantic Center, in 2021, and has a “strategic location” to host the training center that this week has been presented to different ministries and partners such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Organized (UNODC) or European Union.
The Centro do Atlântico presents itself as a catalyst, building bridges between institutions, hoping that the project and respective training and training activities come to fruition.
The expected result is an increase in security and surveillance in the Atlantic, “a vast space of sovereignty, under the jurisdiction of each country”, but which can benefit from “a logic of collaboration” and “increasing multilateralism, to combat” the activities illicit, explained Noronha Bragança.
The center could make Cape Verde a ‘hub’, concentrating training activities.
Asked about the fact that countries may lack resources to invest in the initiative, the rear admiral said that the training center should have partnerships that allow it to “be sustainable” and provide “continuous training”.
The objective is for the project to progress towards an execution plan this year.
The center requires “some level of investment”, with the accounts still to be finalized, “but its sustainability” must be “ensured by everyone”, since its usefulness is recognized, he explained.
The Atlantic Center has also promoted the training of operators responsible for the Multinational Maritime Coordination Center for Zone G, opened in January, in Praia, allowing them to work “in other centers in the region”.
The Atlantic Center is a working and reflection group created in 2018 on a Portuguese initiative, with the involvement of the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs and was formally implemented with the entry of 16 countries in 2021.
It currently brings together 23 partner countries, seven European, 12 from the West African coast, three South American countries and one North American country, which have a common interest in strengthening all aspects of security, in the broadest sense, in space. Atlantic.
Noronha Bragança directed the permanent task group for West Africa in 2018 and 2019, as well as Open Sea missions in the Gulf of Guinea region, in a curriculum that includes military advisory roles with the Portuguese State and Brussels.
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