The eight member states of the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP) will begin an annual military exercise "Felino 2005" on Monday in Cape Verde to practice joint peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.

According to reports reaching here on Saturday, the CPLP annual military exercise will not involve maneuvers by ground troops as it is a Command Post Exercise aimed to test decision making capacities in a variety of scenarios.

About 60 officers from CPLP Armed Forces, including 32 from Cape, a dozen from Portugal and five from Brazil, will set up a command post in Praia for the five-day exercise.

Jorge Monteiro, commander of Felino 2005, told media that the exercise has been devised to test the response capacity of a joint CPLP air, sea and land force in simulated UN-mandated peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.

Computer simulations developed by the Portuguese Army Institute of Higher Military Studies and the Institute of Higher Military Studies in Lisbon will be used during the CPLP exercise.

CPLP held its joint military maneuvers annually since 2000, with Portugal hosting the first two, Brazil staged the third and Angola the fourth.

Source: Xinhua