Is this govt. really claiming that Guyana is not a narco-state?

Sep 27, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
US President, Barack Obama did not name Guyana on a list of countries considered major producers or transit routes for illegal drugs and the PPP went berserk, jumping and screaming for joy. The PPP says this proves that Guyana is not a narco-state.
I have heard some jokes in my time, but this one has to take the cake. How could any government, even one without any decency or intellectual honesty, be so barefacedly fraudulent and hypocritical? They condemn the US for naming Guyana as a serious drug transshipment point in every other source from its State Department reports to its Embassy cables, but they brandish a list from the US government as proof for their spoiled pudding.
The hypocrisy is killing me here. Guyana is a narco-state. No matter how they spin it, put lipstick on it, slow dance with it, sing it love songs or paint it, Guyana is a narco-state.
If the PPP somehow has been living under a rock and does not know Guyana is a narco-state, it should ask the Guyanese kingpins rotting away in US jails for drug trafficking. Ask the authors of the 2006 US State Department International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. Ask the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime which estimated the quantity of cocaine transiting Guyana in 2000-2001 at 20-25 metric tons annually.
The US Embassy estimated from those figures that drug trafficking brought in at least US$150 million annually to Guyana under the PPP. That amount was equal to at least 20% of Guyana’s GDP. I have another calculation. A 15% fee paid to the corrupt who facilitate the trade in Guyana is a whopping US $22.5 million filling certain pockets every year.
These men who have the nerve to claim that Guyana is not a narco-state suffer from moral and intellectual dwarfism. What they don’t seem to comprehend is that Guyana’s status as a narco-state is not based on what the Americans put on a list, but on the level of drug trafficking within the local economy. 20% or more of any economy being supported by the atrocities of the drug trade meets and unequivocally exceeds the definition of a narco-state. 20% of any economy generated by the murder, intimidation, destruction of legitimate business, gangsterism and criminality of the drug trade makes it a narco-state.
By comparison, approximately 10% of Colombia’s GDP comes from cocaine production and trafficking. And we all know that Colombia is the mother lode of drug trafficking and cocaine production.
Using the UN and US Embassy estimates, Guyana is most definitely, clearly, unambiguously, absolutely, positively and undeniably a narco-state. The reason why Guyana does not make the list as yet is because while drug trafficking accounts for 20% of the local economy, it is not of sufficient scale compared to those other countries named on the list.
While drug trafficking means big revenues for Guyana under the PPP, it is still on a small scale compared to Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, Belize and the other countries on the list. Countries that have cooperated with the US on fighting drugs are likelier to make the list, which enables them to get vital aid from the US government to fight drug trafficking.
Like Peter the Disciple who denied Christ, the little Caesars of Guyana may deny and deny and deny, but the fowl cock of truth has already crowed thrice; Guyana is a narco-state, Guyana is a narco-state, Guyana is a narco-state.
M. Maxwell

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Is this govt. really claiming that Guyana is not a narco-state?

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