Bert Wilkinson
GEORGETOWN, Apr 7 2006 (IPS) – Sitting on a wooden restaurant stool while police and soldiers rummaged through a nearby building looking for guns, cocaine and other illegal items late last month, Roy Nelson breathed a sigh of relief that law enforcement agencies had finally mustered the gumption to tackle Guyana s growing drug trade.
I was planning to leave Guyana and go to Trinidad and work in construction rather than get killed by a stray bullet here, said Nelson, 28, as police and the military began country-wide raids against private and commercial installations owned or controlled by suspected drug lords.
We will see how this will play out in the end, Nelson said with a touch of scepticism. I may probably still stick around.
In recent years, the two agencies have been on the receiving end of stinging criticism from the public, opposition parties and local media for turning a blind eye to the drug trade, money laundering and gun-related crimes that have killed more than 400 people since 2002.
Guyana, which sits on the northern coast of South America, culturally identifies more with the English-speaking Caribbean. Its total population is about 750,000.
According to Washington s 2006 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report released on Mar. 1, cocaine seizures in Guyana fell to 43 kilogrammes last year, in stark contrast to the 269 kilos seized in 2004 and 277 seized in 2003. U.S. officials believe that local authorities only interdict small percentages of the cocaine that passes through Guyana.
But recently, embarrassed by the disappearance of five pistols and 30 high-powered Russian-made AK-47 rifles from army headquarters in the capital earlier this year, the police and army have combined forces to take on a trade that the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush said last month was netting 150 million dollars annually, about 20 percent of Guyana s gross domestic product.
While army spokesman Lt. Col. Claude Fraser said the operations were all about the missing guns and only the missing guns , it was clear that the leadership of the two agencies had pounced on this opportunity to take down a trade that has forced the military to dismiss several of its compromised senior officers in recent years and the police to sideline many of similar rank with direct links to traffickers and hired killers.
Military officials say the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have been helping with search equipment and intelligence as police forces seized computer databases listing dozens of citizens in the pay of drug lords, along with guns, military and police kits, vehicles and ammunition.
The army says the databases offer a treasure trove of information that can help them dismantle a trade that had clearly bought its way into the media, the judiciary and every level of society. This includes a special narcotics police unit which, angry legislators say, has been rendered useless due to under-funding by the Bharrat Jagdeo administration.
The raids also come as parliamentary opposition parties, led by the People s National Congress (PNC), have openly attacked the administration, and Jagdeo in particular, for allegedly holding meetings with known drug lords at business places under their control, charges his party has denied. The PNC has also accused Jagdeo of turning the country into a narco-state.
Pres. Jagdeo regularly frequents the favourite haunts of drug lords, enjoying himself in their company and their hospitality in public view of many Guyanese, PNC opposition leader Robert Corbin recently charged.
A prominent businessman packed up his business and left Guyana after turning up for an appointment at the presidential complex one evening and discovering that two well-known drug kingpins had an earlier appointment and were leaving as that businessman arrived, he claimed.
Jagdeo s spokesman, Robert Persaud said that while the administration remains very concerned about the trade and its effects on Guyana, the country does not have the resources to fight the scourge alone and needs more assistance from the U.S., one of the largest markets for illegal drugs.
We have always made a case for increased assistance and for a DEA presence in Guyana. As far as I know, negotiations are going on for a DEA presence but there are some very sensitive issues to be worked out, some that border on our very laws, he said.
Critics point to the fact that the military, which needs to police vast borders with South American neighbours like Suriname, Venezuela and Brazil, is now operating for the first time in 30 years without a single helicopter, and is badly short of vehicles and armoured cars to confront well-armed drug dealers proof, they say, that some authorities are making life easy for traffickers.
For its part, the U.S. embassy here has been supporting law enforcement by canceling the travel visas of anyone suspected of links to traffickers, money launderers, alien smugglers or private death squads that enforce for dealers.
The list includes former interior minister Ronald Gajraj, incumbent Foreign Trade Minister Clement Rohee, ex-Police Chief Floyd McDonald and dozens of lower level players. The Canadians and British usually follow suit in support of the U.S. as they attempt to tighten the noose on those involved.
Parliamentary parties and umbrella business organisations have blamed the trade for seriously squeezing out legitimate businesses by dumping very expensive electronic and other products on the market.
The time has come to take back the country, declared Police Chief Winston Felix.
