The Government of Guyana was gratified at the outcome of the recent special meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government on crime and security held in Port-of-Spain which set out to design a regional strategy to stem violent criminality in the Caribbean.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat and Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon expressed his satisfaction that “Almost all of the proposed interventions by Guyana” for crime fighting had been adopted as part of the 31 specific measures that were approved by the summit.
As a result, the local Ministries of Home Affairs, Legal Affairs and Foreign Affairs were given a tight, two-week deadline to fast-track a timetable to address the identified legislative and administrative measures.
One reason for Guyana’s excitement was the prospect of enhancing the state’s ability to prosecute and deal with evidence from wiretapping. President Bharrat Jagdeo seemed to be keen on having wiretapping endorsed as a regional, rather than national, scheme. The Miami Herald newspaper quoted him as saying that, “If we have region-wide support, it might be easier to get it through the political processes of some countries…that they don’t see it as imposition or a privacy issue at the national level, but a regional tool to fight criminals.”
A national security strategy, of course, must mean much more than drafting a long list of new laws or being animated by the assumed advantages of wiretapping. The administration should first try to evaluate the effects of its own efforts over the past decade during which organised crime became the central issue in this country’s present parlous public safety situation. This should be the first step in the approach to a regional security strategy.
Guyana’s main challenges have come from rich cartels of crooks involved in narco-trafficking, gun-running, money-laundering, fuel-smuggling, back-tracking and graft. All of these crimes have seriously shaken the foundation of the rule of law. The integrity of rogue members of the Guyana Revenue Authority, Guyana Energy Agency, Guyana Defence Force, Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Gold Board has also been compromised by organised crime.
It is impossible to ignore the causal connection between the expansion of these lucrative illicit enterprises and the escalation in criminal violence over the past decade. Equally, it will be an error to think that crime in this country – located on the continent and almost the size of England, Scotland and Wales combined – is the same as that in island states such as Antigua, Barbados, Jamaica or Trinidad.
The administration’s responses to the deteriorating public safety situation have been far from effective. Soon after the start of the troubles on the East Coast Demerara in June 2002, President Jagdeo promulgated a nine-point security plan which included a complete review of existing legislation on crime; the comprehensive reform of the intelligence sector; the establishment of a specialized law-enforcement training centre; and the formation of a SWAT team, among other things. This plan was followed three months later by the passage of a raft of legislative amendments to four crime-fighting acts in the National Assembly. But has the administration’s enthusiasm for law enactment been translated into effective law enforcement?
The Criminal Law (Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2002 prescribed the mandatory death penalty and a heavy fine for acts of terror which result in death. The Prevention of Crimes (Amendment) Bill 2002 provided for nationals who had been convicted of certain offences in a foreign state and have been deported to Guyana to be monitored by the police. The Racial Hostility (Amendment) Bill 2002 expanded the definition of the media which could be used, and increased the punishment, for offences effected under the principal law. And the Evidence (Amendment) Bill 2002 provided for the admissibility of documents generated by the computer or other devices to keep pace with technological advances in the production of electronic documents.
In addition to introducing these legislative changes, the report of the Disciplined Forces Commission was accepted; the National Commission on Law and Order was established; the Neighbourhood Police programme was invented; the Community Policing Groups were augmented, and plans for the Citizen Security and Crime Stoppers’ Programmes were presented. These local ventures were supplemented by substantial advisory and material assistance from the UK and USA governments for the reform of the Guyana Police Force and the criminal justice system.
There must be reasons why, despite these measures, criminal violence is still out of control. One reason is that narco-trafficking – the mother of organised crime – and other forms of contraband trafficking still flourish in this country. Notwithstanding the president’s recent verbalizations on the subject, his administration has not yet found it possible, after more than a decade since the request was mooted, to provide appropriate accommodation for the US Drug Enforcement Administration to establish a country bureau in Georgetown. After nearly four years, the administration has not found it possible to implement its own voluminous National Drug Strategy Master Plan.
Significantly, the annual US Department of State’s International Control Strategy Report over the last decade has repeatedly categorized Guyana as “a transit point” for narcotics to destinations in the EU, UK and USA. Guyana’s porous, unpoliced borders allow narcotics to enter the country by air, road or river. Authorities relish arresting petty couriers trying to leave the country with small amounts of illicit narcotics but seem strangely unable to convict major importers and distributors.
A few alleged traffickers have been arrested and extradited only after they absentmindedly strayed out of this friendly jurisdiction and into neighbouring states such as Suriname or Trinidad which cooperate more effectively with the DEA. Some suspects who are wanted in the USA appear before the slippery local courts only to disappear without a trace through this country’s efficient backtracking network.
As far as the bloody record of mass murders and extra-judicial killings is concerned, the administration has earned an unenviable reputation for not finding it possible to ensure that coroners’ inquests or commissions of inquiry are conducted. In place of hard evidence, officials airily advance worthless theories about faceless masterminds and political conspiracies. Except for the efforts of the Guyana Human Rights Association, there has been negligible credible research into the root causes of either the troubles on the East Coast or the crime wave in other areas in order either to appreciate or ameliorate those conditions and circumstances which contribute to crime.
The administration’s credibility was badly dented when it earned the dubious distinction of employing in the security-sensitive Home Affairs portfolio two of its ministers who had their US visas suspended by the US Department of State. After such an executive performance, no one can be deluded by the recent ritual of reaching an international agreement when it is apparent that national arrangements have been compromised.
The CARICOM summit has generated a magnificent 31-item menu of measures suggesting lots of new laws and a long list of agreements and agencies. It proposed to put into operation an action plan – prepared by the Standing Committees of Commissioners of Police and of Military Chiefs; the Security Policy and Advisory Committee; and the Council of Ministers with Responsibility for National Security and Laws Enforcement – for measures to curb crime in the community.
Indeed, agencies such as the Advanced Passenger Information System, the Regional Intelligence Fusion Centre and the Joint Regional Communications Centre which were erected for security co-operation for the Cricket World Cup 2007 are sound and could be expanded and established on a permanent basis. The proposed establishment and introduction of a Regional Integrated Ballistics Information Network; Regional Investigative Management System; Rapid Deployment Regional Joint Force; Advanced Cargo Information System; CARICOM Visa; and CARICOM Travel Card, and the continuation of the Single Domestic Space, are also great ideas.
But how effectively can such an assortment of agencies and facilities counter the challenges from well-connected criminal cartels? How will CARICOM ensure the
compliance of delinquent member states or punish the misconduct of rogue security officials? Scarcely any consideration was given to erecting an appropriate, permanent institutional framework to manage the plethora of agencies and activities which came into existence for the cricket world cup last year and which have been agreed by the summit this year. Summit meetings cannot manage an international security system.
The Heads of Government could more gainfully spend their time designing a structure similar to the Organisation for Security Cooperation in Europe that caters for the human, economic, territorial and environmental security of member states, and other matters. The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States’ Regional Security System, established by extra-regional powers in the Cold War era, has always been limited in both the size of its membership and the scope and scale of its operations. But regional security threats have changed since 1982 and it is time to move on.
CARICOM must now consider the Guyana Government’s dodgy record of crime fighting. In light of its responses to internal security challenges as exemplified by the prolonged East Coast Demerara troubles, its porous international frontiers, its troubled criminal justice system and endemic governmental graft, Guyana might well turn out to be the weakest link in the security chain – a haven where trafficking in narcotics, trafficking in guns and trafficking in persons seem to flourish without the culprits’ fearing conviction in the courts of law.