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Jagdeo again slams US for limited assistance in drug fight

Nov 28, 2010 News

Head of State Bharrat Jagdeo who is also the current Pro Tempore President of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) on Friday last blasted the United States of America for its half-hearted approach to fighting narco-trafficking on this continent.
He was at the time speaking to media operatives shortly after the close of the UNASUR Summit. Jagdeo opined that the US has to do more and stressed that compared to that country, Guyana spends more per capita fighting the drug trade.
He said that while the recent help to Colombia is welcomed, there are other countries that the drug traffickers would smuggle through, adding that countries such as Guyana have large sections of unregulated borders.
Jagdeo pointed to a recent discovery of an illegal airstrip in the interior which was found with the help of Brazilian technology. He stressed that the region recognizes that it is a huge problem to tackle, but getting the job done is essential to the region’s development.
Jagdeo stressed that this is the reason he created a special council to tackle narco-trafficking and transnational crime on the continent.
He said that South America is fighting but there is need for a corresponding partnership on the part of the demand countries.
“What we get often are lectures from those countries that we are not doing enough…we don’t get resources, except for one or two countries in our region.”
Citing Guyana as an example, he said that every year the US puts out a report, and “I call it a lecture”
Jagdeo stated that he has made his position clear to US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “we get about US$20,000 a year in assistance to fight drug trafficking.”
Jagdeo again lashed out at the US, saying that they have the biggest failures of law enforcement because despite of all of the agencies they have, “most of the drugs end up in the US.”
The Head of State said that the primary source of their (US) financial transaction which leads to money laundering is on the streets of the US. “The first financial transactions take place there.”
Jagdeo insists that UNASUR wants, “a genuine partnership where there is symmetry not lectures and they have to do more on tackling the demand. If you don’t tackle the demand then it makes it harder for us to fight the supply.”
He stressed, however, that despite the limited assistance the problem has to be tackled because “it is destroying our societies.”
Jagdeo has in the past been very critical of the level of assistance given by the demand countries to stem the trade.
At a previous press briefing, Jagdeo had said that the United States of America and Europe are the biggest failures in the world as it relates to tackling the trafficking of narcotics.
“I keep saying that the biggest law enforcement failures are not in the developing world.”
He said that the majority of drugs produced around the world make it through the US borders and onto the streets.
Jagdeo also accused the US of having “counter-productive policies”.
“They lecture us on drugs…they want us to fight drug traffickers more and if you look down the list of the people that get sent back, often it is a long list of drug traffickers.”
A recent report had said “… the Guyana Government’s counter-narcotics efforts remain hampered by inadequate resources for, and poor coordination among, law-enforcement agencies; an overburdened and inefficient judiciary; and the lack of a coherent and prioritised national security strategy.”
The 2009 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) on Guyana labelled the country as a transit point for cocaine destined for North America, Europe, West Africa, and the Caribbean.
The report, which is prepared every year by the United States State Department and analyses the drug-fighting effort for the previous year, has also pointed out that in the penultimate year of its National Drug Strategy Master Plan (NDSMP) for 2005 to 2009, the Government of Guyana has achieved few of the planned original goals.

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