Accusations of collusion

Mar 08, 2015 Editorial

This is the time when political parties seek to make everything that appears to be in the public eye a matter of interest or concern. This is also the time when allegations fly fast and furious without any care for what is true.
Yesterday, General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party, Clement Rohee, made three major announcements, all of which would have been earth shattering had they been made at another time and place. The first of the lot is the relationship between the political opposition and drug dealers.
The political opposition has long been blaming the ruling party of associating with the drug dealers to the extent that it was said to have allowed the drug dealers to take control of a significant section of the economy. We saw housing estates being constructed by people with drug connections and we muttered because we were afraid that if we spoke we would be visited with lethal force.
One Government official, speaking at an occasion where the United States ambassador was handing over some equipment to the Guyana government, said that everyone knows the drug dealers. That being the case, one would have asked the question, “Since everyone knows the drug dealers why are these dealers not staked out and later arrested, having been caught in the act?”
Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan, a confessed drug dealer was a high profile individual who was said to have close ties with the administration. In fact, his fall came when the then President Bharrat Jagdeo left the country and the army and police opted to move against Khan’s empire.
At one time, the international community calculated that the underground economy represented more than 30 per cent of the national economy, a contention that the administration hotly disputed. Not much has changed since then. There is still the accusation that drug dealers are in close association with politicians, this time the opposition politicians are the ones being accused.
Last week, General Secretary of the ruling People’s Progressive Party, Clement Rohee, said that the opposition parliamentarians are in cahoots with drug dealers. He said that this is a known and proven fact. However, he also said that he is free to say what he wants. There are some things that defy explanation and the fact that no opposition politician has ever been arrested for drug dealings is one of them.
As home Affairs Minister with such knowledge the PPP General Secretary had the power to order surveillance of anyone suspected of being in the drug trade. To compound this issue Guyana is now home to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the nightmare of every drug dealer. These are the people who have the power to trace the proceeds from drugs.
In Guyana, the authorities can also monitor suspicious transactions and by now many of these transactions would have come to public attention, especially given the nature of politics in Guyana where each political party seeks to score political points.
Whatever the case, the allegations of drug connections will feature on the campaign trail and while there would be no clear identification of the person, the broad insinuations would be made. Indeed, there is no one in Guyana who cannot deny seeing the effects of drug money. We have seen the changing skyline in the city, the new housing estates that began to go up long before remigrants started returning; the large fuel guzzlers that pass for sports utility vehicles and of course, the reckless expenditures in the night clubs.
These are the young people who care less about politics and more about the good life. These are also the people who would give money to any political party without striking up an alliance. Perhaps this is what the Home Affairs Minister is talking about when he says that the opposition politicians are involved with drug dealers.
But then again, it is no different with any political party and the leaders would simply say that they do not ask too many questions when good money is being offered.

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Accusations of collusion

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