Transnational cooperation is badly needed to fight the narco-trade with police successes in the crime fight being “up and down”, PPP Presidential candidate Donald Ramotar said though he ruled out any enquiry into the post-2002 jailbreak crime wave.
The PPP’s policies are for cooperation, he said with an interview with Stabroek News on Friday, but would not say, whether under his administration, he would accept foreign law enforcement officials in the police force. He said that every decision made up to now has been made in concrete circumstances and he does not want to make a commitment to something way down in the future.
Acknowledging that a lot of the crimes that occur here are stimulated by narco-trafficking, Ramotar said there is a definite need for greater cooperation in fighting this scourge. “It’s now quite recognised that no single country can really solve this by [itself] and what is badly needed at this point in time is cooperation. You have to have international cooperation in fighting crime because it affects all of us,” he said. Once this is obtained, the level of crime can be brought down, he added. “We will have to do our part internally as much as we can do but I don’t think that we can have the maximum of success unless we have international cooperation.” He said that this is not an easy situation to deal with and these are dangerous and threatening times with a lot of cooperation and help needed.
No one likes the crime situation in the country and police successes have been “up and down” but “I think we have to make it more consistently up,” Ramotar said. “One of things that breeds crime in the country, I believe is probably the quantity of guns out there; the amount of weapons available. The amount of gun crime that you see within the society, it is very clear there is a lot of weapons there,” he added. He stressed the need to fight the narco-trade to get the guns off the streets and said that transnational cooperation is key. “If you’re going to succeed, the level of success will heavily depend on the level of cooperation that you have,” the aspiring president said.
Ramotar noted that the Police Force has to constantly be trained and upgraded as well and said that since the PPP has been in government, it has been professionalizing the law enforcement agency, which, according to him, was being used as a tool of the ruling party in the previous government. “We have never used the police force for political purposes,” he said. He emphasized that the administration has been working hard to professionalize the force and “you can judge how successful we’ve been”.
A security deal with the British had been terminated after the government objected to what it said were conditions that encroached on the sovereignty of Guyana. Asked whether he and the PPP were in agreement with that position, Ramotar said the statements made by Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon at the time were very clear and he was in favour of them. “How could I not be in favour… if one of the people who was directly involved said that it was encroaching on the sovereignty of the country?” he said.
He said the party is more policy oriented and not involved in day-to-day running of the government but “the policies are generally guided by the PPP and our policy is for cooperation and the government has not ruled out international cooperation.”
Meanwhile, Ramotar said he is not prepared to have an enquiry into the crime wave post the 2002-jail break. “There were enquiries already on many of these things, a lot of enquiries; so where would that get us? My own view is many times you talk about going forward. Let’s go forward,” he said.
The presidential candidate then said that there is a lot of information out there but many of the “leading press which is really opposed to us” had never taken these things up. He referred to a taped conversation alleged to have been between PNC Vice-Chairman Basil Williams and former commissioner of police, Winston Felix and said that the press had never taken that up. “All they want to do everyday is to attack Jagdeo and attack the government and so forth,” he said.
Further, Ramotar pointed out that there were enquiries pointing to one with now Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang and asked what other enquiries are wanted. Some of the things are very clear, he said, adding that the 2002 escapees were protected in Buxton with Buxtonians being among those who suffered the most and only one political party could have gone into the community at that time. “I am still very strongly of the view that they had political support,” he said of the escapees.
Meantime, Ramotar said he had never spoken with jailed drug lord Shaheed Roger Khan, who had claimed that he helped the government to fight crime. “I have never spoken to Roger Khan. I’ve never seen the man or probably if I saw him I didn’t know him,” he said. “I heard his statement but I’m not aware that he helped the government to fight crime,” he said tersely. As regards US court documents in which Khan said he had the help of government officials in acquiring electronic eavesdropping equipment sold only to governments. Ramotar noted the responses of officials named in those documents and asked why he was being asked about this.
With regard to corruption, Ramotar said he would not deny that there is corruption in the society or there “appears to be sometimes some level of collaboration” in contracts. However, he said that a lot of these things are perception and government has never been given credit for the things it has done. In this regard, Ramotar pointed to the tendering system and while acknowledging that it some cases it has been “subverted” asked whether because of this, it should be stopped. “I think the government has been constantly trying to find ways and means to improve.”
Regarding the non-establishment of the Public Procurement Commission, Ramotar said it is not fair to blame the PPP for it not being set up. “I’m strongly in favour of it and I think we should move as early as possible towards establishing it,” he said. It will be a priority for his administration but “we should try our best to get it going now”.
Meantime, in relation to members of the party seen as above the law after being involved in incidents without facing charges, Ramotar said he cannot agree with this view. He said while for some of the incidents there have been statements made by police as relates to these, to take that and say that PPP members are above the law is stretching it too far. “These are things that I have spent my life fighting so I don’t know how you can say that PPP people behave above the law,” he said. He said there might be incidents when police recognize someone and tell them to go their way but this does not only happen to PPP members.
Ramotar said he does not think the party has moved away from the ‘lean, mean and clean’ governance view espoused by the Jagans, adding that there has been a sustained campaign to discredit the PPP.
Corruption is nowhere near the extent portrayed in the media, he said.
