STRANGE RESPONSE IN DRUG-TRAFFICKING FIGHT
By Rickey Singh
Guyana Chronicle
March 7, 2004
A CLASSIC example of how a state information agency should not release information to the media, happened last Wednesday with a "news bulletin" from the Guyana Information Agency (GINA):
As if like a shot in the dark, and without any attempt to contextualise that information bulletin, GINA circulated a lengthy release to local and regional media on the subject: `Narco-trafficking: What Government has done to tackle the situation - From 1992 to 2003’.
There followed most useful information on how the People's Progressive Party/Civic administration has been methodically pursuing policies and strategies over 11 years, including a series of legislative measures, to counter the evils of drug-trafficking that afflict all jurisdictions in the Caribbean region, and beyond.
The question is, why such a detailed official statement, as released by the government through GINA, now?
My guess is that it has everything to do with the recently published United States Department's 2003 Report on International Narcotics Control Strategy.
And it may have been prompted by extracts of that report published in the Stabroek News which, I assume, will also give coverage to the government's record in tackling narco-trafficking, as released.
Combating narco-trafficking is an international challenge that requires coordination among governments and in which programme of cooperation CARICOM states are active participants. They would include countries like Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago that are said to be significant trans-shipment points for the narco-traffickers.
Just a few days ago, Jamaica's National Security Minister, Peter Phillips, who chairs the CARICOM Sub-Committee for Resource Mobilisation for Crime and Security, signed a Regional Information Intelligence Sharing Network (RIISIN) with British Under-Secretary of State, Bill Rammell, that will include a survey of existing capabilities of Community states in fighting narco-trafficking and enhancing national/regional security.
The Guyana Government, therefore, may have done a disservice by not exposing evident weaknesses of the US State Department's 2003 report on narco-trafficking problems and challenges in this country.
Information for reports of that nature is normally provided by officials within the diplomatic missions with which America has full diplomatic relations. In this case, the US Embassy in Georgetown.
The government may yet wish to challenge, for example, the claim in the report that it was "nominally committed" to counter-narcotics enforcement. The report also comes quite near to slandering the integrity of the Guyana Police Force on the basis of some of its claimed information and controversial conclusions.
Perhaps new Police Commissioner Winston Felix would make his own critical evaluation of the 2003 report ahead of the coming management coordination among regional Police Commissioners to counter narco-trafficking and improving security.
Distorted Information
As it is with governments, diplomatic missions and international agencies, incompetence, and not necessarily malice, could often result in the compilation and circulation of distorted information.
Governments in the Caribbean and Latin American region have, variously, had to challenge data and assumptions in reports from international financial institutions as well as from foreign governments.
It is perplexing to know that with solid information at its disposal on its own record in countering narco-trafficking, the Guyana Government did not consider lodging a formal protest to the US Government about the nature of the 2003 Report on claims of feeble official responses.
It cannot be that the government, seemingly never weary of defending itself against unjustified or wicked claims, is now reluctant to take on repeated negative interventions from the US Embassy in Georgetown.
It needs to know that other governments within CARICOM have, in the past, found it necessary to openly and firmly question controversial claims in annual reports from the US State Department, whether on issues of human rights violations, drug-trafficking and related crimes of gun-running and money laundering.
It cannot be disputed that there are corrupt cops and corrupt customs officers and even corrupt public officials in Guyana. So many have been corrupted over the years by narco-trafficking right across the Caribbean.
But in making the sweeping claims and savaging of governments that have frustratingly limited human and financial resources in combating the drug trade and related crimes, the world's sole superpower should be mindful of its own glaring failures at home when it comes to judging small and poor states in the Caribbean on narco-trafficking crimes.
USA record
Successive US administrations have a long history - before the comparative recent doctrine of pre-emptive war against another sovereign state - in judging, without self--criticism, what other nations do in relation to human rights violations; democratic governance and combating narco-trafficking and money laundering.
Yet the USA remains the world's biggest consumer of illegal drugs; has huge prison populations; unbelievable levels of corruption; a staggering crime rate, even as it continues to dump on the shores of Caribbean states their nationals as "criminal deportees", thus adding to the challenges facing local law enforcement agencies.
This is not to rationalise the crimes of narco-trafficking, money laundering and gun-running in Guyana, or anywhere else. Rather, the more intelligence information-sharing there could be between the USA and other countries, the better it would be in cracking and destroying drug trafficking and other criminal networks.
What is being challenged is the alacrity with which American officials rush to judgement and pretend to be "objective" while politically screwing up governments - wherever, and whenever they choose.
I should clarify that my observations not be interpreted as a direct criticism of the relatively new US ambassador to Guyana, Roland Bullen, who I had the privilege of knowing when he served for a number of years in the Barbados-based US embassy for the Eastern Caribbean.
The Guyana Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been doing its best to diffuse any perceived or real tension in relations with the USA - whether they relate to issues involving revoking or renewing the US visa of two cabinet ministers, or else.
Now come controversial claims in the 2003 narcotics control strategy report from the State Department, when the government is yet to elicit a response from the US embassy in Georgetown on the failure, after three months, to renew the expired visa of Foreign Trade Minister Clement Rohee.
This is an unfriendly act by a government in Washington that insists on its "very good relations" with the government in Georgetown.
If it is reluctant to be more forthright on the issue of visas for Cabinet ministers, the failure to take issue with controversial aspects of the US State Department report for 2003 is rather surprising. Hence, the out-of-context GINA release needs to be revisited.
And for how much longer, it could be reasonably asked, will the government wait on the United States for a decision on Minister Rohee's application for the renewal of his visa - indefinitely?