Would Venezuela and a subservient Guyana put an end to drug trafficking?

Nov 28, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
An embattled Hugo Chavez seems to be buckling under US pressure to show that he is doing something to allay US concerns on the drugs traffic to the US.
The blowing up of bridges and halting of trade relations with Columbia may be a clever ploy of shielding Venezuela from its domestic problems and away from the glare of the outside world.
The placing of his armed forces on war footing has also failed to ruffle the Columbians as Chavez seeks refuge in his belligerent antics and anti-imperialist tactics. Chavez now seems to be facing a dilemma about what next to do and it seems more about calling upon his friends to stand up and be counted.
Suddenly Guyana was dragged into the picture. Guyana security and police forces are few in number and of no consequence relative to the Venezuelans. They are also poorly equipped, poorly trained and poorly managed.
It is the Venezuelans who can make claims about having overwhelming numbers in their well-trained security and police forces and with the best of military hardware, modern jet fighters and tactical air transport at their disposal. Guyana is an absolute irrelevance to Venezuela if the real objectives of the Venezuelans are to crush the drugs traffic.
A subservient President Jagdeo, dependent on subsidized Venezuelan oil, was however, called upon to dance to the tune of Chavez. Earlier this month top Guyanese security officials were hastily dispatched to a call from Caracas for the two countries to cooperate to fight against drugs (“Guyana, Venezuela to toughen the drugs fight” – SN November 23, 09.)
This is against a backdrop of President Jagdeo’s own inaction against one of his senior police officers suspected of drugs trafficking. Guyana has failed to show any sustained and strong commitment in the fight against drugs. Then there is the recent scuttling of the UK funding of $1.6 billion security and policing project, which resulted in the Guyana police being denied proper training and rendering the police incapable of delivering effective and accountable policing. The horror of police torture of a minor recently has also created a public outcry.
Would the Caracas initiative finally put an end to the growing drugs problem that is spreading across Guyana, or is it another one of Chavez’s smoke screen to divert attention elsewhere?
Venezuela is unable to deal with its own endemic corruption as Leocenis Garcia, the investigative journalist had discovered.
The journalist had spent his life investigating corruption in Venezuela and had prepared a dossier on 60 cases, which was published in the Six To Poder newspaper, and submitted to the Venezuelan National Assembly for action. It is claimed that one of the cases involved the purchase of drilling equipment from China at $5 million apiece, but invoices were submitted for $25 to $30 million apiece.
Each of the dossiers on corruption was some 300 pages long and providing all the crucial evidence needed for action to be taken. All 60 dossiers were dismissed by the Venezuelan National Assembly within 24 hours carte blanche, and not a single case was upheld. According to Leocenis Garcia the dossier on the PDVSA went missing. Even if the National Assembly had taken action against just one single case, it would have sent a wake up call to the Venezuelan people and to change the current status quo irrevocably.
If this is indicative on how to deal with endemic corruption by the Venezuelans, then what lessons could Guyana learn from them about curbing drugs trafficking? It may however play to Chavez’s favour with little to gain for Guyana. The fact remains that Venezuela has very close ties with the US and Chavez knows he could get away with it.
This has not been the same in the past for Guyana. Indeed Cheddi Jagan had paid the heavy price for doing just that when he tried. And it ended up at the cost of the lives of many.
As his biggest customer the US is buying half of the Venezuelan people’s oil. Chavez has also recruited Joe Kennedy of the Kennedy clan to ensure his relationship with the US is always alive and well. Further he is providing annual subsidies to the US to the tune of $100 millions through the Venezuelan owned CITCO based in Texas to help the poor people in that State.
The people’s oil money is being used by Chavez to buy him powerful friends across the globe and at the cost of the poor, who are living in squalor and poverty in the shanty towns of Venezuela.
They were told recently by Chavez that they must bathe less to save water and to reduce water shortage.
Further the PDVSA social project was meant to change the face of poverty in Venezuela.
However, with the oil revenue from the people’s oil in full flow, little seems to reach the shanty towns and the Venezuelan poor.
Mac Mahase

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