Drugs in molasses
Editorial
Stabroek News
July 19, 2004
With each spectacular interception of drugs originating from Guyana the stakes grow ever so higher in the battle between the lawful society and the spreading narcotics virus. The news of the enormous interception of cocaine - 693 kilogrammes worth US$38M - in drums of molasses at the Dutch port of Rotterdam has a now familiar ring to it. This bust follows closely on the heels of the discovery of cocaine in Guyanese timber and rice at ports in the UK and Ghana, on a vessel in the US port of Baltimore which led to the arrest of a former national cyclist, and the dismantling of several drug and money laundering operations conducted through the JFK Airport in New York.
The signs are clearly there that as the screws are turned on the more traditional routes of the Colombian drug cartels by the Bogota government and the US Drug Enforcement Agency the traffickers are shifting further west and Guyana is firmly in their sights because of the poorly policed frontiers and the easy ride of corruptive influence.
If it is the case that the frontlines of the narcotics war have wheeled dramatically to the west, there is little evidence that Georgetown is preparing to repulse this assault with any type of well thought out plan. Successive PPP/C administrations have mouthed the usual meanderings about a `drug master plan' going back to the days of the Home Affairs Minister Feroze Mohammed and the Police Commissioner Laurie Lewis but the public sees no results unless a major plank of the initiative is to allow the transit of large drug shipments unimpeded. The 2003 Royal Canadian Mounted Police report released a few days ago says Guyana has retained its status as one of the main transit points for cocaine into Canada.
We restate again. Despite the massive seizures of drugs originating from Guyana in the above-mentioned busts not a single person has been charged on Guyanese soil with committing a single crime. It is as if Guyana has become a freeway for the flow of drugs in the hope that those abroad who have procured the shipments will be prosecuted in their jurisdictions. If this were the official strategy it is completely ill-conceived and ignores the daily accretion of power to the local drug lords who continue to score transshipment successes, launder their ill-gotten gains and poison society by buying influence and running fiefdoms with heavily armed lieutenants who have undoubtedly dabbled with the death squad machinery. The scale of these deals - US$38M in the case of the seized molasses shipment - gives an idea of the type of payout that locals would receive and the kind of buying power that their narco-dollars would have.
The action taken by the local law enforcement agencies has been spectacularly limited to the uncommunicative couriers and small fish in the drug trafficking sea. One man was held in the recent elaborate attempt to smuggle cocaine in grey snapper. This investigation is reportedly still open as it should be since one man could not have run this operation alone. Several high-profile persons were questioned intensively in this investigation but it seems that they will avoid prosecution. Here again - though the shipment was impressively intercepted by CANU - we are no closer to getting to the real truth.
The real truth is who are the locals in contact with the Colombian/other drug lords, how are they striking deals, how are the drugs coming into the country, what happens to the drugs once they are here - are they repackaged, processed etc, how are they taken out of the country, what are the means of payment, how are these proceeds repatriated into the local financial system, how are they disbursed and to what uses are they put. Unless we can definitively answer these questions we are wasting time pretending that we are doing something about the drug trade. This game of pretence can have startling consequences because by the time we are forced to confront the problem it may be too late to get the monster back into the cage.
We have a dismal record where it comes to investigating high-profile crimes and prosecuting the guilty parties. The recent drug interceptions, the Thomas Carroll case and numerous killings such as that of the CANU Head Vibert Inniss spring readily to mind. This laissez-faire attitude to law enforcement and drug interdiction must end and a real plan should be drawn up to deal with the trade.
Bad signals
Over the last 12 years that it has been in government couldn't the PPP/C have negotiated a small sum for the replacement of the decades-old malfunctioning traffic lights from the numerous public sector infrastructure loans it has clinched? Alternatively couldn't funds be found in the budget for this? It boggles the mind that this was never catered for. Major thoroughfares like Camp Street over the last few weeks have become like stretches on the grand prix circuit and the public is left to digest promises of repairs and other unconvincing statements. Are we serious about tourists and being recognised as an orderly capital city? If so we'll get new lights.