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LOCAL Tuesday 3 November 2020

New ‘rotation Company in the West’ starts

SAVANETA — In a short military ceremony, decessor Captain Maarten by means of
Compagnie in the West handed over ro- the traditional paddle transfer. Rotation 35
tation 34 its tasks to rotation 35. The Com- will also remain in the Caribbean for four
pagnie in the West (hereinafter CidW) is a months.
permanent unit of the Royal Netherlands
Army in the Caribbean. The new com- The previous rotation was much visible in
mander Captain Stefan relieved his pre- Curaçao during her assignment in recent
months. This was mainly due to the many
military assistance that the CidW carried
out in the field of (maritime) border surveil-
lance, in which it worked closely with the
Caribbean Coast Guard and the Cura-
çao militia. Support was also provided dur-
ing the search for a missing man. Due to
the COVID-19 situation, rotation 34 did not
train on Aruba, but on Bonaire. Supporting
civil authorities is one of the main tasks of
Defense in the Caribbean.
CidW 35 comes from 11 Infantry Battal-
ion Air Assault Garderegiment Grenadiers
and Jagers, a unit of 11 Airmobile Brigade.
This company, the Bravo Company, is also
called the "Bull Company". This Bull com-
pany is no stranger to the region, it had
previously had duties as a CLAS company
in the Caribbean. Both units come from
Schaarsbergen and know each other
from the barracks there. The bull stands for
courage, maneuverability and punch.
This class of CidW resides on Curaçao in a
new type of (interim) uniform of Defense,
the so-called "multicam jungle".q