At 19:43 15-8-01 -0400, John Garcia wrote:
>>As an employee of the Dept. of Defense, I must direct you to the
>>Department's website at http://www.mindef.nl (the first page is in Dutch,
>>but at the bottom you will find a button "English version").
><snipped>
>
>Thanks for posting the site, it's pretty interesting. I have a question.
>What is Marechaussee? I was able to figure out the rest (Navy, Army, Air
>Force), but not this branch of service.
You can compare the Royal Marechaussee (sometimes also translated into
English as "Royal Constabulary") to what other countries would call
"Military Police". The Royal Marechaussee does a lot more than that, though.
The tasks of the Royal Marechaussee are divided into two categories:
Civilian Tasks and Military Tasks.
Civilian tasks include police and security duties at civilian airports, at
the borders of the Schengen region and at the Prime Minister's official
residence, security duties for the National Bank, and protection of
transports of the National Bank. Other civilian tasks are providing
assistance (on request) to the police, and the protection of the members of
the Royal Family. They also provide protection for visiting foreign
dignitaries, and have a ceremonial function during these visits (such as
escorts and honor guards).
The Military tasks include police duties for the Armed Forces, as well as
planning and escorting military transports.
> From the English description of the budget, it seems that the
> Marechaussee service is concerned with telecommunications and information
> systems. Is that true?
No, that is not true. What you are referring to is the statement that
additional resources were allocated to the Royal Marechaussee to compensate
for the higher operating costs, which were caused in part by higher
expenses for computeratisation and communication.
>If so, that's an interesting concept. In the States, each branch of the
>service has its own command devoted to such matters, although there is an
>overall Defense Information Systems Agency in the Defense Department.
We have a similar arrangement here. Each branch (as well as the Central
Organisation) has its own command (known as Telematics Groups), which are
responsible for part of the ICT(*) infrastructure of their own branch. The
overall agency for telecommunications and information systems is called DTO
(Defense Telematics Organisation), and is part of the 5th branch, which is
called DICO (Defense Interservice Command). DTO is responsible for the rest
of the ICT infrastructure of the 5 branches and the Central Organisation.
(*)ICT = Information & Communication Technology
Jeroen
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