Customs Officers of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) were implored to keep a careful watch on shipments into and out of the country for material that can be used to create nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
UN Security Council’s Terrorism Executive O’Neil Hamilton engaged Customs Officers of the GRA on July 21 at a workshop focusing on the UN Security Council Resolution 1540 Implementation Programme, a release from the GRA said.
“The time has come when we have to realise that the movement of weapons of mass destruction are often shipped through different locations… Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons are constituent parts that are fundamental to the creation of that device…. These weapons are made up of different elements, they are not created as a whole entity by themselves overnight,” Hamilton said.
The UN Security Council Resolution 1540 which was adopted in April 2004 obliges states, inter alia, “to refrain from supporting by any means, non-State actors from developing, acquiring, manufacturing, possessing, transporting, transferring or using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their delivery systems.”
The release said that one of the likely indicators of this activity is the propensity to ship dual use materials over a period of time, through different locations. The UN Security Council Terrorism Executive made reference to the radioactive isotope Cobalt 60 which is employed in Cancer Treatment Centres but can also be used to make a “dirty bomb.”
“Looking at that end user dynamic, applying trade intelligence etc are fundamental in this new era where the movement of commodities is exponentially more fluid than they were years ago,” Hamilton said, as he urged Customs Officers to ensure that the trade regulations that govern the movement of particular commodities are applied.
