A senior State Department official is to take to the US government, President Bharrat Jagdeo’s new proposal for the establishment of a permanent branch of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Guyana. .
Asked whether the US had any intention of setting up a DEA office here, visiting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Thomas Shannon, said yesterday at the Office of the President that he was taking such a proposal back to the US with him.
Guyana had first indicated that it wanted the DEA to set up a permanent presence here in 1995 when Feroze Mohamed was home affairs minister. He had made a public appeal then, following the discovery of a huge gold-smuggling operation, but there had been no response from the US embassy.
In 1999, following a number of large cocaine seizures here, the Defence Board had reportedly been in talks with the embassy. The issue appeared to have lapsed and then came to the fore again in 2005, when the Defence Board formally asked the DEA to establish the office and bring in additional agents because the government lacked the resources to fight drug trafficking and money laundering on its own.
According to reports, a suitable building was being sought to house the DEA. Asked about this, former deputy chief of mission at the US embassy Michael Thomas had said that the DEA “looks forward” to setting up an office in Guyana. However, a year later, a secure enough building had not yet been found and reports were that the US had rejected the locations proposed by the Guyana government.
Earlier this month, following the publication of the annual US State Department Report, which criticized the government for failing to implement its National Drug Strategy Master Plan, Secretary to the Defence Board Dr Roger Luncheon had said that government’s efforts to have the DEA establish an office here were unfruitful. “I would want to advise that efforts have been made by government but those efforts have not been fruitful,” Luncheon had said. The report had said that considering the absence of DEA involvement here US support would be applied solely to the treatment of addicts and not to the drug interdiction battle.
Meanwhile, Shannon acknowledged yesterday that the USA, as a principal market for narcotics and a supplier of weapons for narco-trafficking, has a responsibility to step up its efforts in the drug fight through agencies, such as the DEA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Sharing a press conference with President Jagdeo at the Office of the President, Shannon said the US also had a responsibility to step up the fight against organised crime in the Caribbean, through information exchange and means at its disposal.
He said his discussions with Jagdeo underscored the need for improved security in the region which was vital not only in terms of combatting criminality but in creating a democratic environment with social services conducive to economic and social development.
Referring to the two recent mass killings at Lusignan and Bartica in which 23 men, women and children were brutally gunned down, Jagdeo reiterated that the government planned to do whatever it took for however long to bring the criminals who committed those acts to justice.
He said help was needed for vulnerable communities to take youths away from the clutches of criminality and drug dealers who were out to spread fear and terror in the wider society. He said help was also needed for the security forces so they could better execute their duties.
On the issue of deportees, Shannon noted that a pilot programme for resettling deportees had started in Haiti and other Caribbean countries including Guyana. This programme would include the exchange of information by the US and the countries receiving the deportees.
He noted that provisions were put in place for the exchange of information during the Cricket World Cup 2007, in which the USA played a part in terms of the advance passenger list. This was an issue, he said, he was due to raise with Caricom yesterday.
Apart from security issues, Shannon also praised Guyana for a well-executed programme under the US President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). He said Guyana ran a “superior” programme in the fight against HIV/AIDS generally, but particularly in the reduction of mother to child transmission of the HIV virus.
Noting that Guyana has gained the approval of the US Millennium Challenge Cor-poration (MCC) Threshold Program Funding to help government reduce its fiscal deficit, he described it as an investment in its people.
Jagdeo said that to gain that approval, Guyana was required to meet 16 eligibility criteria set by the MCC, and fell equal to or above 15 of the criteria. The criterion not met, he said, was the one dealing with the country’s fiscal situation. He said the Threshold Program funding would be used to strengthen fiscal revenue agencies.
