Security Promotion

One of the tasks of VDSM is the promotion of measures to protect important national interests. This involves the Government of Sint Maarten and those critical components of the (semi) private sector such as the airport, the seaport, telecommunications companies, the hospital and the utilities company. VDSM advises government and the (semi) private sector based on a thorough analysis of how they have organized and how they execute their security policy and protection.

Infrastructure of a country is considered critical if at least one of the following criteria applies: 

• disruption or failure of a service or product can cause economic or societal disruption on a national scale;
• disruption or failure leads directly to many casualties and
• disruption or failure is of long duration, recovery takes a relatively long time, and during the recovery period there are no realistic alternatives.

The protection of critical infrastructure is primarily the responsibility of the various stakeholders themselves. However, cooperation and communication between VDSM and stakeholders is essential to achieving an effective level of protection in the future. The ambition of VDSM in relation to protecting the critical infrastructure of Sint Maarten is threefold:

• to advise and support the various stakeholders in their efforts to avoid large-scale failures or disruptions;
• to advise and support government and the private sector in their efforts to strengthen the necessary preparation for the consequences of failure or disruption and;
• to contribute to (repressive) measures that can be taken to prevent or minimize damage from failure or disruption as much as possible.

VDSM produces analyses in order to identify persons and groups that may pose a threat to people, objects or services that need to operate without disruption, because of the huge national interest (country domain) they represent. The Service also executes research, by preparing risk and threat analyses, into whether or not people, objects, or services that are part of the country domain in themselves constitute a target.