What did the outgoing US Ambassador accomplish?

Jun 12, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Have you ever seen fear in the eye of a person? I have. And more times than I count and remember. On each occasion, the fear was justified because the frightened person believed that they would either be physically hurt or would be arrested. The times are simply too numerous to recall.
I have never seen fear in a person’s eyes over an incident that is inconsequential. Why would any human be intimidated over an action that has absolutely no fear factor? But I once witnessed such a contradiction a few years ago.
I was shopping in this large store in the heart of the city when a development occurred that was distasteful and therefore necessitated a complaint. I went from one attendant to another, seeking the name of the owner and to be directed to his/her office.
In every instance, fear greeted me. If you saw the look and the body movement of each attendant, then you knew something was deadly wrong in this store. Every attendant was afraid to give me the name of the owner with several of them saying they don’t know the identity of the owner. I know that was not true. A supervisor called me aside and side “Mr. Kissoon, please leave it alone.”
I was livid. I raised my voice so all of them can hear. I told them if they go to Gafoor’s and demand to see who this man is he would probably come out of his office and speak to them and they would see who the famous man is. I mentioned Bakewell. I told them to go there and demand to see the owner out of a complaint and you will see how quick he will come down from his third floor office.
I saw fear in the eyes of that supervisor. The manager then approached me, told me go to another store and request to see the owner but she cannot give me a name. She too had a frightened look. I came out of store number one, and called my editor Adam Harris for a name. Adam knows everyone in Guyana but he was only half helpful. He said it was a woman whose name he can’t remember but he thinks he knows her brother. I went to store number two and fear greeted me. To make long story short, I knew why they were so afraid. And I knew that I should not know who this woman was.
In Georgetown, where there is a small population, people who are in dubious and questionable business are known. Irritatingly, only the US Embassy doesn’t know this. Mr. Brent Hardt, the American Ambassador leaves in a month’s time and under his watch, the DEA based in Trinidad (which takes in the monitoring role in Guyana) has not hauled in any large drug trafficker in Guyana. But why is that so shocking? Because large sections of Georgetown society know who these people are.
In a tiny space like Georgetown, drug traffickers and money launderers are seen dining and driving down the streets like film stars in Hollywood (oops, sorry; and Bollywood too). To be fair to the US Embassy, there have been three huge drug interdictions outside of Guyana but originated here but no arrest on Guyanese soil of Guyanese citizens.
In the meantime, the jail is filling up with couriers including a motor-cycle owner who at the time of his arrest at the airport was clerk at a famous tourist and hotel chain. Couriers are going to jail like falling mangoes on the tree in my yard.
Does the US Embassy know who these drug people are? Surely they must have heard stories from the people they dine out with all the time. In hardship postings in the Third World as Guyana is, business people, lawyers, doctors, status-seekers, wannabes, media practitioners, politicians trip over each other to socialize with the American, British, Canadian and EU diplomats.
These envoys must have seen Kaieteur Falls more often than the people who live around the water falls, must have seen the interior of Guyana more than the folks who live there, and must have hunted and fished in tourist sites in the lush interior more often than the villagers who hunt and fish there for a living.
Don’t tell me the names of the drug people and money launderers are never mentioned at these revelries and at the nightly cocktail circuit.
Why the DEA in Trinidad and the US Embassy have not had a plausible record in combating drug trafficking and money laundering in Guyana certainly is an intriguing one. Equally interesting is why Mr. Hardt did not use visa sanction as the Embassy did between 2004 and 2008?

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