Dear Editor,

The 2010 US State Department Inter-national Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), produced in news format by your newspaper (‘Guyana’s drug lords still operate with impunity,’ March 2), repeats most of what previous INCSRs said, including that Guyana is still a major transshipment point for narcotics, that the government has not done enough to combat the situation, and most shockingly, that the government does not facilitate the activity.

In fact, under your article’s subheading, ‘Corruption,’ the American report noted that while “as a policy the government does not encourage or facilitate the illicit production or distribution of narcotic drugs or laundering of proceeds from illegal drugs transactions, it is believed drug trafficking organisations in Guyana continue to elude law enforcement agencies through bribes and coercion.”

The use of the word ‘policy’ here does a tremendous disservice to the credibility of the report, because there is no government in the world I know of that has a policy that encourages or facilitates narcotics smuggling. So, while it is true that the Guyana Government does not have a policy that encourages or facilitates drug smuggling, it is also true that the government has not done enough to combat the scourge, and this is widely believed to be because government officials and officers in law enforcement have been the recipients of bribes to look the other way.

Now, if in situations like this perception is often times 90 per cent of reality, then it stands to reason that even if there is no policy that encourages or facilitates narcotics smuggling, then at least a practice has taken the place of a policy, which makes the government just as culpable as if it had a policy in place. What I would like to ask those responsible for producing the 2010 report is, in the absence of a policy, does this mean that the US will not take any action against Guyana Government officials or law enforcement officers, based on testimony from Guyanese already convicted in US courts on narcotics smuggling or based on any type of surveillance?

Editor, Panama never had a policy that encouraged or facilitated narcotics trafficking, yet, according to information I Googled, General Manuel Noriega, was ousted from power and captured when the US invaded Panama in 1989 during Operation Nifty Package. In April 1992, after being flown to the United States, he was tried and convicted in a Miami, Florida court on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering. On September 16, 1992, he was sentenced to 40 years, which was later reduced to 30 years and then to 17 years for good behaviour.

Though his release date has passed, he remains in a Florida prison awaiting a judge’s decision on whether he should be extradited either to France, which convicted him in absentia for money laundering, or deported back to Panama, where he faces a series of murder charges. My point here is that Panama did not have a drug facilitation policy, yet its President was tried and convicted for engaging in the practice of drug trafficking.

While it has never been officially established or reported by the US authorities that any government official or law enforcement officer in Guyana ever trafficked in drugs, it has to be a matter of grave concern that Guyana can be dubbed a major transshipment point and government officials and law enforcement officers not know. Given the number of major busts by the US of Guyanese traffickers, I would be shocked if US authorities have not obtained information implicating officials and officers in Guyana as knowing or facilitating the drug trade, and if they did facilitate by inaction or even through bribery and coercion, then whatever they did or did not do reflects greatly on the government, thereby implicating the government. Again, a practice can be just as damaging as a policy in the government.

So if we were to start from the highest level and work our way down the chain of command in the government, we can find a disconcerting lack of interest in addressing the scourge by going after known traffickers. For example, after the US released its damning 2005 INCSR in March 2006 naming Khan as a major drug trafficker operating out of Georgetown, the President never even ordered a police probe of Khan. And when he was also asked how Khan could purchase land put up for sale by GuySuCo, the President replied, “Unless you have a conviction against a person, then you can’t say you can’t tender for public land,” even though by this time it was common knowledge that Khan was convicted in the United States and trafficking in drugs in Guyana.

At the time of his capture, according to a Guyana Review special, “Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan: drugs, dirty money and the death squad,” August 20, 2009, Khan had developed a housing scheme at Good Hope, East Coast Demerara, where he built over 100 houses. On a large expanse of land purchased at Blankenburg, West Coast Demerara, he built his second housing scheme, called the Hibiscus Scheme. He then embarked on the construction of a third scheme, at New Hope on the East Bank Demerara and a fourth housing scheme at Farm, also on the East Bank.  Khan was also proprietor of a timber company on Kaow Island and had interests in several night clubs and other enterprises. How could this guy’s financial capacity escape the interest or eye of the Jagdeo government?

It is now known, based on court testimony in New York, and his ability to bug the Police Commissioner’s phone, that Khan rubbed shoulders with people in the upper echelons of government, and at some point he must have convinced himself that there was a working relationship between him and the government. That prompted me to engage in a vigorous but unsuccessful search of SN’s archives to find a quote in a news article, in which Khan wrote on his computer, that he was disappointed in either the lack of support or cooperation from a particular person during his ordeal from Guyana to Suriname to Trinidad and finally to America, after all he did to help save the person. While it revealed a human side of Khan, it did raise a rather significant question: Was the person he was addressing in his writing here a member of the government?

I close by saying that even though there is no policy facilitating drug smuggling in Guyana, the Guyana Review article adverted to above certainly puts the government in an awkward position when it wrote: “Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan was one of the most complete criminals in Guyana’s history. He acquired vast properties, recruited serving police officers, ordered executions, imported and exported cocaine, laundered millions of dollars, possessed specialised intercept equipment and armed himself with a wide assortment of handguns and ammunition. All of this was possible only because of his special relationship with the Guyana Government. He enjoyed immunity from an indulgent administration and compliant law enforcement agencies. Even now, the administration has made no attempt to conduct official inquiries nor has the police force attempted to bring Khan and his well-known accomplices to justice.”

Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin