When the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) sets up its long-awaited office here in January, it will begin establishing facts on the drug trade here followed by recommendations and programmes.
This was disclosed by new US Ambassador Perry Holloway during an exclusive interview with Stabroek News on Friday at the US Embassy.
For years there had been attempts to have a DEA office here but this had been held up for various reasons and the former PPP/C government has also been accused of not wanting a DEA office stationed here.
At a press conference on Monday, Holloway had been asked by Stabroek News how the Guyana Government could set about gaining access to convicted drug lord Roger Khan who has been incarcerated for drug trafficking. He had replied that the bar for such access was set pretty high and there had to be some substantial case. On Friday, he suggested that the government could look at legal ways to entice convicts in US prisons and suggested that one option might be a plea deal in exchange for a lighter sentence so that they get the information needed.
“Like I have said before we don’t expect fishing expeditions…There are a number of mechanisms via the UN (United Nations) process and the OAS (Organisation of American States) for countries to exchange legal information but there is a way you have to request it. It has to be based on certain things in your country… generally you have to have had charges in your country. It depends, it doesn’t necessarily have to be an indictment but probably very close to an indictment,” Holloway said.
The US Envoy pointed out that government can go directly to convicted imprisoned citizens and persuade them to give information to help with investigations locally.
“If the government of Guyana wants to interview any Guyanese in jail they can go because there is a consular service they provide for the well-being of their citizens …say they want to interview for investigative purposes the prisoner has to agree to it. We are not going to force a prisoner into a room and say talk,” Holloway explained.
“The government has to figure out what compelling argument they can provide the prisoner to make them want to talk to the government. That is why often there is an indictment in the home country and often the government might say ’you know if you talk to us then that might be considered in your sentencing here,’” he added.
Holloway had told a press conference last week that the US government is willing to facilitate any request from the Guyana government for access to convicted drug trafficker Roger Khan, for the purposes of conducting an inquiry into the operations of a death squad that he is reported to have headed, but stressed that the requirements for such are quite high.
Khan is currently serving a 15-year sentence in a US jail after pleading guilty to trafficking cocaine, witness tampering and gun-running.
The PPP/C government, under the leadership of then president Bharrat Jagdeo, had long been believed to have allowed Khan a free rein to operate in the name of crime fighting after the country experienced an unprecedented crime wave that was triggered by the February 23, 2002 Camp Street prison break.
The David Granger-led party A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) then in opposition, had been very vocal about Khan’s dealings here and the fact that he was linked to numerous killings. It was Granger who led the charge in calling for a Commission of Inquiry into the death squad killings and had promised that under his administration the COI would become a reality.
Khan, before he was held in neighbouring Suriname in 2006 and then handed over to US authorities, had stated in a public advertisement that he had been fighting crime at the behest of the government. “During the crime spree in 2002, I worked closely with the crime-fighting sections of the Guyana Police Force and provided them with assistance and information at my own expense. My participation was instrumental in curbing crime during this period,” the ad, published in May, 2006 had stated.
Holloway stressed that until his government obtains a formal request from the government there is nothing that the US would do and even then it would take a while since there has to be the meeting of certain criteria.
The US Ambassador, who has over 15 years’ experience working on counter narcotics programmes in various countries, also noted that joint efforts by the United States and Guyana to bring down drug lords and traffickers would not be a “quick-fix” and could take years. He said that although America’s leading anti-narcotics agency, the DEA is about to have a firm footing here it has to be complemented by political will and a concerted effort of the citizenry.
“The single most important thing to fighting narco-trafficking is political will…,” Holloway said. “I have seen nothing that says there is not the political will here. It is a new government and it will take time for them to do one of these investigations… In the US when we investigate, and I mean some of the larger narco-traffickers not someone carrying cocaine in balloons in their stomach, but actually but someone running an organisation, those cases are very complex and they take years [it is] not something that happens in days or weeks or months.”
He added, “The bad guys are smart and they might not be nice guys but they are very smart and the bosses very purposely keep their hands off almost any part of the business. So it’s not like you are going to catch them with 500 kilos of cocaine. So to prove that they have an ongoing criminal enterprise and things like that, it takes years often and a lot of effort and work,”
He said that although the DEA has been here a year, it is finally going to be full time permanently staffed and will be working very closely with the competent anti-narcotics authority here, such as the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit, the Guyana Police Force and Coast Guard and believes that the joint effort will lead to future convictions of big drug traffickers.
He said that while there is the issue of corruption in dealing with drug cases, all of Guyana isn’t contaminated and much can be achieved.
“Corruption, when you are dealing with narco-trafficking, is always an issue. One of the most difficult things in dealing with this problem is that the bad guys have a lot of money …They don’t follow the rules. They don’t have to follow the rules and it makes the job difficult. These guys have lots of money …But while the problem is bad I don’t get the impression that the narco-trafficking has permeated all levels of society like I have seen it do in some other countries. Are there people of society on a low, medium, high …that might have been infiltrated by these bad guys? Yes, I am sure there are. However, I don’t get the impression that it [society] is totally permeated and with that there is still hope for Guyana to turn the problem around. So that is sort of the good news,” he stated.
He also believes that Guyana will need to address the issue of poorly paid law enforcement agents and beef up its ability to monitor its entire airspace and move at short notice to intercept drug shipments from Colombia and other countries.
So while there needs to be political will and a culture of rule of law, within the society, there needs to be economic opportunities. “These guys can find a customs official and they can offer him a year’s salary and it doesn’t cost them anything to do that; it’s just a small percentage of their profit. So it is very hard if you are not paid [well] and you have kids, wives, husbands and they have needs. You know they need books, shoes, food. It is difficult for people to resist that temptation,” the US Envoy pointed out.
He said when workers have a myriad of unmet needs they will find it “very very difficult to resist the corruptive power of the bad guys.”
Holloway said he has told the Guyana government that Washington is “very committed” to providing whatever they need help with and already some areas have been identified. These include fact finding elements of the presence of the drug trade here in Guyana and this will be the main focus of the DEA in its initial months. The results will be analyzed and recommendations made on how to pointedly tackle the issues.
“Guyana doesn’t have the resources of some of the larger countries in the region to track aircraft coming in or even if they can… and it lands in the hinterland they have no way to project their force to get there. It is very, very difficult so it will be a series of incremental changes. For example, better information on what the trafficking looks like so that is what DEA’s focus will be on initially; finding out what’s going on. Once you have that you design programmes and initiatives to address it and that starts with basic laws and regulations,” he said.
