The US Embassy in Guyana should be asked about this

Mar 12, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

On Thursday, February 25, 2010, a delegation of five Guyanese met with one of the most important members of the Obama Cabinet to discuss the undemocratic behaviour of the Guyana Government. A range of issues were discussed that took in racism against African Guyanese, the relationship between narco-traffickers and leading members of the Guyana Government and corruption. The delegation was promised that there will be a reexamination of US foreign policy towards Guyana.
Yesterday, I was informed that the State Department issued a diplomatic note to the Guyana Government on its concern about corruption in official circles in Guyana.
My source in Washington D.C. is strategically placed and has informed me he is in no position at the moment to confirm that the note was sent but said his source is credible. The question is how the Guyanese people can get to know if such a concern was transmitted to the Government. In these types of foreign policy operations, the US goes through its local embassy. It means that the US Embassy should be in receipt of the note. Our media should put the question to the Embassy.
The Embassy has standard procedures that it operates with. It does not comment on visa matters and issues of security. In this case, it is a straightforward foreign policy decision and it is difficult to see why the Embassy would want to refuse a comment on this note if it exists.
The US made its concern known a few months back to the Kenyan Government (I think it was Kenya; I may be wrong but I strongly think it was Kenya) about corruption. There was a press release about that. I leave it up to my media colleagues to do their work.
The ubiquity of corruption in Guyana is a fact that is known to all the Western embassies in Guyana. Governments prefer diplomacy and it may have been possible Western missions here have made their fears known to the Guyana cabal. If that is so, then they have failed to elicit a positive response. Guyana is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and the specter has taken on dimensions that are literally pathological and degenerate. Actually, corruption is the main obstacle that PPP leaders cannot surmount among their constituencies
In the PPP community countrywide, if a survey is taken, the Government will get favourable ratings over Roger Khan. PPP leaders at bottom house meetings have told their supporters that Khan saved East Indian people whom the Buxton-based gunmen wanted to murder en masse. Many in this community bought that rotten argument, rotten in the sense that if you give state power to a narco-trafficker, he will obviously keep his part of the bargain but he will ruthlessly use the latitude to perpetuate his cocaine empire.
This is exactly what Khan did. And now we have “Sash” Sawh’s brother-in-law making insinuations about Khan’s alleged role in Sawh’s death. It is certain that the US Government is not finished yet with their interest in the role of the Guyana Government in its relations with Khan. This writer believes that David Clarke’s cataclysmic confession is being studied by the US Justice Department. However, if a poll on corruption was done among those same interviewees, the PPP Government will condemn by every one of those interviewees.
In the sphere of corruption, one can safely conclude that this government has certainly become the most venal regime in Caribbean history and can be put in the same category of egregious Latin American offenders. The police, opposition parties and the public think they know about corruption in the Government of Guyana. They don’t.
You want to know how labyrinthine, complex and finessed the process of corruption is then talk to the media. It is a hundred percent certain that if there is a non-PPP Government, there will be a judicial commission of inquiry into corruption and any high-placed officials will be prosecuted. But the inquiry will only get to the tip of the iceberg. The political elites, for all their mediocrity and incompetence have used some ingenious schemes to hide their thefts.
One such method is relatives’ foreign bank accounts and foreign properties in relatives’ names. Another is actual investment in well known business companies without any paper trail. In other words, these investments are based on trust and friendship without any legal document. This elaborate scheme will not be easy to penetrate. If you go to John Jones and say, “I think this former minister put millions into your company.” If the owner says, “Absolutely not,” then what can you do?

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The US Embassy in Guyana should be asked about this

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