Ten countries in the region were to sign an agreement yesterday with the United States to make the tracing of illegal weapons easier, but Guyana was not among those at the signing ceremony in Barbados because bilateral discussions are still ongoing nearly two years after the initial proposal.
Guyana was unable to complete the process in time to ink the deal which included signatories such as Barbados; St. Kitts and Nevis; St. Lucia; Antigua; St. Vincent and the Grenadines; Dominica and Grenada.
The memorandum of understanding which was signed between the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and regional governments provides for the electronic tracing of illicit firearms under a system called eTrace.
There are no indications where the negotiations between Guyana and the US stand, and efforts to contact officials at the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here proved futile yesterday.
The surveillance of illegal firearms remains a key security issue here, and rampant gun smuggling across the country’s porous borders continues to pose serious challenges.
Political and Public Affairs Officer within the local US Embassy, Rolf Olson said yesterday that the agreement is an ongoing effort to combat firearm trafficking that grew out of a joint US-Caribbean initiative in 2005 during a summit in Washington.
The US proposal was being processed at the bilateral level and not with the region as a collective, Olson said. He added that Guyana was unable to complete the process in time for the signing.
According to Olson, the US had hoped to sign the agreement with as many regional countries as possible.
On the issue of Guyana’s absence, Olson stated that the discussions were being handled at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Other signatories to the agreement are Aruba, Curacao and Anguilla.
In 2007 the US and Caricom member states, drawing on their mutual vision of inter-American security had agreed to improve information sharing on entities and individuals involved in illicit trafficking, and the routes they use to traffic arms, and to promote the tracing of firearms recovered in connection with illicit activities in order to provide investigative leads.
Further, countries in the hemisphere were encouraged to join in the effort with the US consistent with the joint December 2007 Caricom-US Initiative on Combating Illicit Trafficking in Small Arms and Light Weapons and Ammunition.
The use of illegal firearms has escalated here with often deadly consequences.
