Southern Partnership Station Returns to Nicaragua

Release Date: 3/31/2009 11:03:00 PM
By Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Matthew Olay, Southern Partnership Station Public Affairs

BLUEFIELDS, Nicaragua (NNS) -- High speed vessel Swift (HSV 2) anchored off the coast of Bluefields for the second time in as many months March 30 to begin a nine-day training mission during Southern Partnership Station (SPS).

Southern Partnership Station is an annual deployment of various specialty platforms to the U.S. Southern Command area of focus in the Caribbean and South America. The mission is primarily information sharing with navies, coast guards and civilian services throughout the region. SPS is comprised of Navy training and support teams, Marine Corps training teams, foreign naval officers and civilian contract mariners on a Military Sealift Command platform.

While in the area, training teams from Navy Expeditionary Training Command, Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Marine Corps Training and Advisory Group will be teaching courses to members of the Nicaraguan Navy and Marine Corps. The courses provide instruction in boarding team tactics, armed sentry operations, port security, martial arts and small boat engine repair. Cmdr. Christopher Barnes, mission commander for SPS, sees return visits such as this one to Nicaragua as being advantageous to the goals of the overall mission.

"Since we've been here once before, we now know what the needs are, and the trainers know what the needs are, so we can adapt our courseware to give [the Nicaraguans] what's required," said Barnes. Barnes added that returning to train the same students with whom the SPS team interacted during the first port call to Nicaragua will allow the level of training to be more advanced than before. "My expectations are even greater," Barnes said.

The final SPS visit to Nicaragua comes on the heels of a four-day training evolution in Cartagena, Colombia. While in Colombia, SPS instructors trained 124 students in a variety of topics such as combat lifesaving, nonlethal weapons and junior enlisted leadership principles.

The return visit to Nicaragua is the second-to-last stop for SPS, with a follow-on visit to Jamaica scheduled before Swift completes the SPS mission. In addition to prior visits to Nicaragua, Colombia and Jamaica, SPS had also twice visited Panama and Barbados. The mission also made single stops in El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.

The mission is coordinated through U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. 4th Fleet (NAVSO/ 4th Fleet) with partner nations to meet their specific training requests. As the naval component command of SOUTHCOM, NAVSO's mission is to direct U.S. Naval Forces operating in the Caribbean, Central and South American regions and interact with partner nation navies within the maritime environment. Various operations include counter-illicit trafficking, theater security cooperation, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, military-to-military interaction and bilateral and multinational training.

Fourth Fleet is the numbered fleet assigned to NAVSO, exercising operational control of assigned forces in the SOUTHCOM area of focus.For more information on U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. 4th Fleet, go to http://www.navy.mil/local/cusns/.