Guyana lags behind Suriname in fighting drug trafficking

Mar 11, 2010 News

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– Dutch-speaking Republic boasts of dismantling several major cartels

While the big fish in the local drug trade continue to elude the law enforcement authorities here, Guyana’s neighbour to the east, Suriname, is boasting about the dismantling of the top 10 drug cartels in that country.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, at the Pegasus Hotel, minutes after concluding a bilateral meeting with his counterpart, Guyana’s Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, Suriname’s Justice Minister Chandrikapersad Santokhi said that his country has used a very effective intelligence approach to fight the drug trade.
According to Santokhi, the Suriname authorities have been able to analyse the drug situation in the country and are engaged in close collaboration with all the countries which are in the chain of drugs transshipment through Suriname.
He said that Suriname has adopted a very effective intelligence approach by listing all the ‘king pins’ who are involved in the coordination of drugs transshipment, from the source country through the transit areas to the destined country.
“Together with these countries, we’ve managed to dismantle the top ten criminal organizations in Suriname and now we have designed a new second top ten list. Based on that intelligence sharing, we are moving to fight the drug trade in our country,” the Surinamese Minister explained. He said that the Surinamese vision is that the drug problem is not just a national problem but an international one.
“You need to have an international response and we’re doing that by including all of our international partners and Guyana is one of our international partners in the fight against drugs,” Santokhi stated.
Guyana has had problems collaborating with international partners in the drug fight.
Recent international reports have not been too favourable to Guyana’s efforts, prompting condemnation and criticisms from top local authorities.
Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon had recently called for more action and less talk, while being critical of a recent US State Department report on Guyana’s efforts to fight the drug trade.
Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee had described the report as misleading.
And President Bharrat Jagdeo had chided the American administration for lecturing to Guyana, while they were providing no tangible assistance to help this country fight drug trafficking. But a US Diplomat had indicated that any assistance that Guyana is to receive must be matched by an intensification of efforts by the local law enforcement agencies to arrest the drug trafficking problem.
Minister Rohee had pointed that Guyana was indeed making efforts to strengthen its drug interdiction capabilities, pointing to the mandatory polygraphing of operatives of the Customs Anti Narcotics Unit and the Narcotics Branch of the Guyana Police Force.
He said that given the aggressive stance that many governments in this hemisphere have taken on drug trafficking, it must have made the activity much more difficult for those who are engaged in it.
“So it’s not that the government, as far as I’m aware, is relaxed or throw back and not doing anything. The facts show that most of the governments in Latin America and the Caribbean have a very aggressive posture in fighting drugs,” Rohee stated.
But from all appearances the efforts of the local drug enforcement units are not enough.
Only recently shipments of cocaine have been able to pass through Guyana’s main port of exit and made their way to the United States where they were intercepted.
But according to Rohee, the law enforcement agencies in Guyana have stepped up the fight against the illegal trade both at the sea ports and the airport.
“I am saying that life is being made more and more difficult for them (drug traffickers) to traffic their dirty trade. I‘m not saying that it’s easy for us either. The fact of the matter is we have to be constantly on the ball. This is not something that we could give up on,” Rohee stated.
To this end, the local authorities have to grapple with the alleged collusion of some of its drug enforcement operatives who are falling prey to huge offers of cash from drug traffickers.
But the Surinamese Minister offered some advice.
He explained that because of the organizational structure of the drug trafficking network, initiating money laundering investigations is the most effective way to get to the drug barons.
“The leaders, the ‘king pins’ of drug operations are keeping themselves far away from the drugs. They are keeping direct control of the money. So with criminal investigations into money laundering, you can reach the ‘king pins’ easily. That is why you need to have the legislation, the mechanism and the international cooperation in place because as a (single) country you will not reach very far in that investigation,” Santokhi explained.
But the drug traffickers are upgrading their network using hi-tech mechanisms to facilitate this. To counter this Santokhi said that law enforcement agencies also have to employ modern interception programmes to track and bring down the major drug traffickers.
President Bharrat Jagdeo recently assented to the anti-money laundering bill and legislation is being put in place to utilize technology to intercept criminal activities via wire tapping.

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