Ban on airline passengers without proper papers
by Michelle Elphage
THE government is taking steps to pass a law that will ban airlines from ferrying passengers into Guyana without comprehensive documentation. Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon yesterday told the Chronicle the move comes in the wake of the questionable circumstances surrounding the deportation of eight persons altogether from Canada and the United States, without proper documentation. "The public law in America prohibits the transportation by an airline of anybody to enter the country without the relevant documents...We're moving to have that law," Luncheon asserted. He said he has spoken to Minister of Home Affairs, Mr Ronald Gajraj in that regard. The law is likely to include fines for airlines which bring persons here without proper documents. These fines, Luncheon said will be within US$1,500 and US$3,000, and the airline will have to take the persons back to their port of embarkation. The top Government official said the local Police and the Ministry of Home Affairs cannot yet prove that a man named Edgar Garfield Gibbons who was deported from the U.S. in April last year is Guyanese. "We don't have pictures. There is no immigration record to say such a person left Guyana," Luncheon argued. Gibbons is in Guyana and the U.S. Embassy here has urged that he write a formal complaint stating that he is American as he claims. "If he was Guyanese there should be a passport picture or some record at the passport office to show that," Luncheon added, but he said checks are continuing here to "prove beyond a reasonable doubt" that the Gibbons in the Brickdam, Georgetown lock-ups is not Guyanese. "We have to keep searching," he explained, indicating that it was now up to Guyanese authorities to show proof that the man is not from here. "The proof has to withstand the scrutiny of the American justice system," Luncheon said. He added that it was not strange to find persons with the same names in different countries noting that "the fact that the names are the same is further evidence that there could have been some confusion." The American Embassy in Guyana is moving to establish the nationality of the man deported here by the United States immigration but who claims he is a citizen of the U.S. Gibbons was deported to Guyana in April 1999 after serving a sentence from the previous year for possession of marijuana. Consul at the Embassy here, Mr Vincent Principe said the mission will admit a mistake if the man the U.S. immigration deported turns out to be an American citizen. But he said the man must submit his claim to the embassy in writing, explaining that for the Americans to investigate there must be a formal claim to go on. Principe claimed there has been no communication with the embassy here from the man, except one phone call from the Brickdam Police Station. Canadian Foreign Minister, Mr Lloyd Axworthy earlier this month apologised to Guyana for the manner in which Canada immigration officials shipped seven deportees here without covering documents. Guyana protested to Canada at the incursion of its airspace by two private Lear jets Canadian immigration chartered last month to fly the seven deportees here without sanction by the Guyana Government. Foreign Minister, Mr Clement Rohee asked that the matter be put on the agenda of a recent Caribbean Community (CARICOM)-Canada Joint Commission meeting in Trinidad.
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