Police probing drug cases?
Editorial
Stabroek News
December 1, 2003
Day after day, the demands on the police force to produce results and provide reasonable explanations continue to snowball. Because of the unrelenting crime epidemic last year and this year, it is easy to forget the hundreds of serious offences which went unsolved. Dozens of ordinary householders were robbed, brutalised and terrorised. A smattering of these cases went to court and an even smaller number was successfully prosecuted. There was no apprehension of kidnappers who wrought havoc last year and up to now still cause fear. For the more than 20 police officers who were slain by criminals, how many of their killers were brought to recognisable, legal justice? None.
On top of trying to keep these crimes at bay, in addition to the usual offences, the rise in domestic violence and the rampages of several village outlaws who are still at large, the police force now has to grapple with a growing number of high-profile drug trafficking cases.
Top of the list would be the recent smashing at the JFK airport in New York of a Guyana-based trans-shipment ring which had been going for years, the secreting of cocaine in a consignment of timber sent to the UK and the use of a shipment of rice to Ghana for the same purpose. If that weren't enough, there has been a steady stream of mules sneaking drugs through the main international airport. For every two or three caught, doubtlessly a larger number is getting through security screens at the airport.
In addition to all of the challenges the police force is now facing together with the piercing scrutiny of the Disciplined Forces Commission (DFC), can it handle this added burden of drug trafficking and transshipment? The answer is most likely no. The government had better start doing something serious about upgrading the force to handle this scourge.
Based on the recent cases unearthed, it appears that Guyana is increasingly being used as a transshipment point with all that that entails: narco-terrorism, hit squads, depositing of payment in cocaine here and money laundering. The security apparatus and the ministries and agencies entrusted with responsibilities in this arena need to urgently awake from their slumber. They had better start seeking expert help urgently and recruiting specialists in the anti-narcotics fight. Of course, it will be a spectacular failure unless strategies are synchronised or integrated with those of our neighbours and others e.g. Suriname, Brazil, Venezuela, Trinidad, Colombia, French Guiana.
The basic problem has to be tackled first i.e. the inability of the police force to do any penetrative probing of the drug business leading to major breakthroughs. Take the airport couriers, for example. For all of those who have been snared there has not been any serious retracing of the transaction leading to the mother lode. The couriers clearly know their lives are in danger if they squeal and so they prefer to take their chances in jail. That is however a problem that the police have to solve for themselves by improved investigative techniques, better intelligence - which all of its senior officers who testified before the DFC agreed was needed - and the ability to assure the couriers and witnesses that the police force would act professionally on their information and protect them from mortal danger. It won't happen overnight but there isn't a sense that the force is even moving in this direction.
It is as yet unclear whether the police were in the loop in relation to the bust at JFK but it seems unlikely. From reports though, the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit had knowledge of the operation and one waits to see if there will be prosecutions. The cracking of the ring also raises again the question of integrating all of the anti-narcotics units into a coordinated fighting force. The furthest the police are usually able to go in the drug courier cases is in identifying the proximal procurer not the drug lord or the source of the drug lord's supplies. That is a whole different plane and clearly at an altitude much above where Eve Leary sits at the moment.
The other example of the force's clear helplessness is the export of cocaine in the shipment of timber to the UK. Months after the UK authorities broke the case through painstaking investigations and visits here to spy on the ring, our police and narcotics agencies have not pressed a case against anyone. It is the Thomas Carroll syndrome all over again. Although Mr Carroll, several local police officers and Guyanese civilians committed a whole bundle of crimes in this jurisdiction, they escaped prosecution. A few arrests were made and a litany of excuses offered by the Office of the President, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Police Force about why there were no prosecutions. The only conclusions that could be drawn by the public were that there was little interest in prosecuting or that we did not have the wherewithal. Both conclusions are loaded with danger.
After apprehending suspects and making preparations to put them on trial in the coming weeks, UK police authorities visited Guyana recently and secured affidavits from several witnesses of interest for the purposes of prosecution.
In Georgetown, there isn't a murmur from the Ministry of Home Affairs or the Police Force about whether those who participated in exporting cocaine in timber will be prosecuted as they surely should be. Inevitably, in the coming weeks a whole series of excuses will be made. Before then, maybe the Office of the President and the Ministry of Home Affairs should say clearly if there is the intention to pursue this case or whether we will just let it slide and consign this one and others to prosecution by foreign law enforcement agencies whose particular interests don't always coincide with ours. Such ambivalence will only invite bolder efforts by drug lords and traffickers.