The United States is pushing ahead with a multipronged approach to fight the drug trade, including targeting y youth and preparing those in supply and transshipment countries such as Guyana to be gainfully employed, while it works on reducing demand in the United States.
“So, if you can’t find a job as a young Guyanese, what do you do? You either leave the country or you join a gang,” Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Juan Gonzalez said in an interview with Stabroek News on Thursday as he spoke of the US’ role in tackling the narco trade.
“We need to address those opportunities by engaging youth and ensuring you know when you actually get out of school, and you would have worked hard… you have the same opportunity as everybody else to make a future,” he added, pointing out that he was echoing his country’s Vice President Joe Biden’s youth empowerment stance.
Gonzalez said the US recognises that it has a responsibility in curbing the narco trade while ensuring the demand for illegal drugs is eradicated. As a result, it is engaging and will help governments of supply and transshipment countries to formulate a holistic approach that includes dealing with the high rate of unemployment of youth to address the issue.
“…If you look at the investments we have made—Colombia, everybody knows it—our investments in reducing drug demand in the US, are much much higher …We recognise our responsibility and are trying to decrease that demand. …As opposed to the days of the 1990s when we all focused on the supply side, the days of the cocaine cowboys, now we are actually working with governments to strengthen the presence of state, rule of law, issues, which address not just the issue of trafficking, but the fundamental issue of state in ensuring that justice has reach. Because whether it is drug trafficking, gangs whether it is just crime, if you have a strong judiciary, if you have a police [force] that is professional and present, that helps to address all those,” the US diplomat stated.
“You also have to think to address the issue … that is facing much of the Caribbean and Central America, which is a very large youth population. A very large youth population that suffers from unemployment,” he added.
Washington has also erased the popular catchphrase of the concerted effort to eliminate narco use and its trade—‘The War on Drugs’—saying it is no longer fighting a war but tackling the issue from a public health perspective.
Another area the US has focused on is dealing with how drug-related offences are punished and finding solutions for youths who were caught up, possibly because of circumstances, in the drug trade. Gonzalez posited, “There is a very high level of incarceration of people of colour—so Latinos and African Americans constitute the majority of the prison population. What this [the Obama] administration has done is to ensure that if you are guilty of minor drug-related offences, you don’t spend your life in jail. It doesn’t make sense. Especially if you are not given the opportunities to excel, by having access to schooling and opportunities for jobs, that you should be punished if you are not a big kingpin criminal.”
He added, “That is something we are actually investing in the region as well. Ensuring that we are doing demand reduction and the public health components that we are emphasising.”
The US-funded Skills and Knowledge for Youth Employment (SKYE) project was designed to strengthen youth’s access to justice and equip youth with market-driven skills and attitudes to improve their ability to transition to the workforce.
After a rapid assessment of Guyana’s youth population was done, findings revealed that they represented the largest number of persons living in poverty and there was little to no alternative sentencing options for youth who found themselves in the justice system. It was also found that both private and public sector employers saw youth as generally unprepared to enter the workforce. With those findings in mind, SKYE designed a four-pronged strategic approach: Detention Prevention, Welcome Home, Get Ready to Work and Be Your Own Boss.
And while the programme comes to an end this September, United States Ambassador to Guyana Perry Holloway has said that the US government, through USAID, will remain committed to working along with its local partners in supporting the youth development and empowerment work and reducing youth involvement in crime and violence in Guyana.
Preventing radicalisation
And while Guyana is being hailed as a model country where religious and cultural tolerance and understanding are helping to prevent the radicalisation of youths, a multipronged approach targeting their social and economic areas of development is also one the US says it is using to curb the influence of radicalisation here.
“Whether it’s drugs, gangs or radicalisation… you want to have education and economic [empowerment] for your youth. These are responses to any threat. Why is the US engaged in these issues in the Caribbean? It’s in our own self-interest for the Caribbean to be secure, middle class and democratic, it is not just lip service,” the US envoy asserted.
“We think the US and leaders of Caribbean governments, religious leaders and civil society leaders have an important role to play to address and prevent radicalisation…You need to address the issue of opportunity because it is as easy to join a gang as it is to self-radicalise. Somebody just needs to go to the wrong website on the internet and folks that don’t have the opportunity to school or have the wrong mentors are susceptible to that sort of influence. What we need to do is … engage our youth actively so that they don’t join gangs or self-radicalise and that they follow that life of opportunity,” he also said.
The US therefore continues to monitor countries in the region for possible penetration by radicals while it shares intelligence on issues of security.
“It only takes one person,” Gonzalez noted. “We have had terrorist attacks in the United States, not just 9/11. We have had what we call lone-wolf actors who self-radicalised or have travelled as foreign terrorist fighters. It only takes one individual, say with a gun on a beach to have a terrorist attack,” Gonzalez said, while adding that empowering leaders and sharing intelligence is one way of spreading the unity and tolerance message, while ensuring security against radical forces.
“You have countries like Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and others that are really stepping up to the plate. We are always watching and it’s something we are watching closely throughout the world… It’s a multipronged approach. On a state-to-state level, in a system where we are working well with Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, we share information. When it comes to travellers’ lists, we make sure we have information, know who is travelling and we share that back and forth. So that if there are individuals of concern, we are sharing that information,” the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs asserted.
“Our law enforcement communicates actively to make sure if there is a law enforcement threat, that we are coordinating our responses. That is one part. The other part is to make sure that you are empowering voices that reflect the good side of the different religions that exist. You need to empower those voices to speak to young people and ensure they have good role models,” he added.
Gonzalez, who represented President Barack Obama at Guyana’s 50th Independence Anniversary celebrations on Wednesday evening, said he was moved by the participation of the nation’s youth and the expressions of glee and satisfaction on their faces.
“I thought it was beautiful… the elementary and high school students that were doing the dancing and singing, you could tell for each of them that it was the part of the highlight of their day and life. Having young men and women from Guyana giving their poems and the Guyana freedom song… I found very moving. Not only was the celebration beautiful and a recognition of Guyana of the last 50 years, but I think it was the National Anthem… it moves me because Guyana has long had a tradition where all of its ethnic groups live peacefully together. I think it’s a model, not just for the region but something we would want for the world,” he stressed.
