The stark issue that faces President Jagdeo and his government following the months of revelations from courts in New York is simple: good governance. The testimony that has been presented in the Robert Simels case in the last few days has tightly focused the matter. Did the government either directly or through one of its agents assist drug trafficker Mr Roger Khan so that the phantom group associated with him could engage in acts cloaked as a war on crime? If that were the case it would be the most perverse and corrupt form of governance.
Faced with such a damaging charge, the first order of business for any democratic and conscientious government would be to clear its name. A government confident that it had done no wrong would immediately set about trying to prove that its name had been undeservedly besmirched. It would endeavour to access the confirming information – in this case from Smith Myers who supplied the spy equipment and the independent contractor, Carl Chapman, who did the spy machine training here. Neither could conceivably withhold such information from this government as the very nature of their business entailed official approval from Georgetown and if they had been duped by a person or persons pretending to act with the authority of the government then their business reputation would be at great risk. Smith Myers has already shown such recognition by appearing in a US court on a subpoena by the US government and presenting sworn testimony.
On the other hand, a government engaged in a cover-up would harangue and remonstrate with its critics while offering the most infantile arguments as have been on show recently on the NCN programme `Guarding against Political Adventurism’. The jury is still out on which side this government is coming down on. Perhaps when President Jagdeo settles in from his recent trip abroad he will exercise his mind with this issue and weigh the acute dilemma that faces his government.
Were it the case that officials in the government had collaborated with a drug lord – no matter the venture – then they would no longer be fit to occupy office. The question would then have to be how high up in the administration such knowledge and sanction existed and this in itself would determine whether the government should be held responsible as a collective. The stakes are therefore exceedingly high.
How then can the government set about protecting its reputation? First, it must act with great dispatch. It has been known to prevaricate on any number of crises so that the pressure of public anxiety could be relieved by the passage of time. The Lindo Creek massacre is one such example. Second, it must entrust the responsibility of acquiring the confirming situation to someone or a body seen to be independent of government influence. As has been the case whenever Guyana has encountered grave crises, the regional community is available. There is no good reason why the Caricom Secretariat could not be asked to depute an eminent person acting with the fiat of the Guyana Government to elicit the information from the various sources. It has to be remembered by President Jagdeo that the government has been implicated in this matter and can therefore have no part of the process to clarify. Undoubtedly civil society here could be mobilized to catalyse an approach to Caricom which would be acceptable to President Jagdeo.
There is no need to regurgitate and analyse the wealth of circumstantial information connecting Mr Khan with power centres here since 2002 and surely long before that. It has been done on numerous occasions.
The only thing left to be said is that unless these accusations are resolved, the government will seriously impair and enervate its ability to lead this country. It would no longer be trusted here by a significant section of the public and nothing it says will be accepted without testing. Guyanese are already skeptical people –honed by years of political intrigue. These recent revelations will take it to stratospheric levels.
While credulity will be much strained here there is also a great likelihood that the international community will ask itself the very questions that the people at Stabroek Square, Bourda Market and at all street corners are now asking themselves about these recent developments. Those persons in the international community can well be influential personages in the IFIs which have been increasingly pressured to pay heed to just and fair governance in client countries. There may be no public announcement about how they act but there are eventualities than can affect matters like funding and priorities in country strategies etc.
The President is also in the midst of a frenetic campaign to promote the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) and to have it championed at the upcoming meeting on climate change in Copenhagen. The foundation of such a strategy would be whether those who will potentially fork out money to Guyana for the continued preservation of its forests will be confident enough in the quality of our governance to do so. They will naturally be inspired in such evaluation by the very questions that Guyanese are asking about the Simels trial and the government’s response. Are the government and the ruling party prepared for this?
