Guyana, US sign pact to trace illegal weapons

May 13, 2009 News

Guyana has joined 18 other countries in the region with the capability to trace the origin of illicit firearm following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding yesterday at the Ministry of Home Affairs.
United States of America Ambassador to Guyana, John M. Jones, U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) representatives David T. Johnson and Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that grants the government of Guyana access to eTrace, an electronic system used to trace illicit firearms.

(From left) U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Representative, David T. Johnson, Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee and US Ambassador John Jones, sign the MOU, in the presence of Foreign Affairs Minister Carolyn Rodrigues (right) and Director General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Elisabeth Harper (background).

Also present were Orlando Blanco of the ATF, Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett; and Director of Foreign Affairs, Elisabeth Harper
After the signing, Minister Rohee explained that Guyana has already selected a team of local Joint Services ranks to monitor the eTrace. He said that the members of the team have already proven themselves to be above reproach, when asked whether the team members would be subjected to polygraph.
Minister Rohee added that Guyana already has a relationship with both Brazil and Suriname in this regard. There is a suspicion that most of the weapons coming to Guyana originate in Brazil.
Mr Johnson said that the programme was some time in the making and coming as it does, adds Guyana to a list of 30 countries worldwide with access to eTrace.
He said that in the United States, every manufacturer has a number. He can easily be traced by eTrace which also affords the authorities to determine the buyers.
In the event that weapons originating in the United States end up in the wrong hands the seller can easily be caught and prosecuted, Mt Johnson added.
The MOU establishes conditions of the partnership between ATF and law enforcement authorities in Guyana regarding policy and procedures for the access and use of eTrace services.
eTrace is a paperless firearm trace submission system that is accessible through a secure connection to the World Wide Web.
According to the US Embassy, the Internet application provides the necessary utilities for submitting, retrieving, storing and querying firearms trace-related information, allowing for the systematic tracing of firearms recovered from crime scenes.
Analysis of firearms trace data can assist in the identification of firearms trafficking patterns, as well as geographic profiling for criminal hot spots and possible sources of illicit firearms.
Participating law enforcement agencies with access to the internet can acquire 24/7 real time capabilities to electronically submit firearm trace requests, monitor the progress of traces, retrieve completed trace results, and to query firearm trace-related data in ATF’s database.
The eTrace system is specifically designed to trace firearms manufactured in the United States of America.
If however, the weapon recovered is from another country, local law enforcers could store the data on the database for comparison with future findings.
The signing of this MOU is part of an ongoing effort to combat firearms trafficking in the region, consistent with the December 2007 joint CARICOM-U.S. Initiative on Combating the Illicit Trafficking in Small Arms and Light Weapons and Ammunition.
Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee told media representatives covering the signing that Guyana has already selected a special team of Joint Services personnel, who he described as the best in firearm technology locally, to work with the programme.
ATF is a law enforcement agency within the U.S. Department of Justice dedicated to preventing and fighting violent crime.
The US Embassy stated that the agency has processed more than 300,000 crime-gun trace requests in fiscal year 2008, including traces from 58 countries.
The other countries in the region that have eTrace capabilities include Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Mexico, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Several Caribbean police forces signed e-Trace agreements on March 31, 2009. Seven Central American states signed the same MOU in December 2008.