Dear Editor,
The President was acting in one of his more playful roles recently. It was reported that he seeks to make the country “totally inhospitable for drug traffickers. (KN, June 27). Acting aside, he is most unconvincing. I do not believe the President; I do not believe he has the will or skill to live out to that loud far-reaching statement. Quite candidly, this is simply more hot air from a president, government, and party that has an inexhaustible supply of such air.
It should be noted that the President was careful, and clever enough, to limit himself almost exclusively to drug traffickers. He apparently did not have much volume (or verbiage) to share on the issue of money launderers, the other half of the diabolical Siamese twin of narcotics and dirty money. One has to wonder if the big money washers are exempt from this “totally inhospitable” business contemplated.
Now I do believe that there are several reasons for this cunning silence. Among them, the economy would unravel, including way less gold declarations from pretended operations and results, among other sobering realities. And the real hard truth of what this country is about will unfold in unambiguous, undeniable terms.
For the reasons shared above, I do not see the President running any risk remotely related to any opening of the local Pandora’s Box involved in his pronouncement; he dares not tamper and risk political oblivion. While the President and his people have been very successful in making the capital city inhospitable and unlivable for residents, I envisage that doing the equivalent for the ‘narcotocracy’ will be infinitely more insuperable, even if the President was genuine. That is, unless the President and his people are thinking of marooning the traffickers in rising floodwaters, and then inundating them with an avalanche of garbage, just like happens in Georgetown. That just might work to make things “totally inhospitable.”
More seriously, the Commander-in-Chief has not been this way before on the grave national issues of the times. He is not being so now on the national narcotics industry. Further, the President does not need anyone – especially me – to familiarize him with the close connectivity of drugs and money laundering and the gargantuan national corruption octopus. Despite the occasional soothing, sometimes disingenuous, public words and postures, the President himself has not disrupted the corruption machinery.
Thus, if he does not move against corruption, then it is almost guaranteed that words and stances against the other two related areas are empty, useless, and lack credibility. The President may not know, but trust is earned arithmetically, while distrust grows geometrically.
In the interim, the remaining thoughtful in the nation watch with interest the fanfare surrounding the DEA’s imminent arrival (some are already here under different cover); and the tortured journey of the anti-money laundering legislation. Incidentally, no one gives a damn and most have already dismissed outright the latest Drug Master Plan (what is it now? VII or XII?) in the works, given the credibility of its source and the history of the predecessors.
Let me be clear –drugs and dirty money and the disciples are here to stay. And nobody gun run dem.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall