Barry Dataram came to my home; I wasn’t interested

Mar 06, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Mr. Barry Dataram turned up at my gate last week Thursday, in the morning hours. I went out to him, he identified himself, told me what he wanted to talk to me about. I wasn’t interested. I called Dale Andrews in the presence of Mr. Dataram. I didn’t get an answer. I then phoned Kaieteur News. Leonard Gildarie answered. I asked him to interview Mr. Dataram. He agreed. Dataram agreed too. Dataram never showed up at Kaieteur News.
I got a few words of chastisement from my KN colleagues for not interviewing Dataram myself. One KN journalist said in the presence of Mr. Glenn Lall that I was afraid. I was laughing when he said that, but it is the truth. I do not do drugs journalism. I am simply afraid for my life. I will not end up as the Guyanese version of the murdered journalist from the Republic of Ireland, Veronica Guerin (please see the movie on her work and death). I am sorry if I disappoint you, but I do not do drugs journalism.
I have mentioned twice in my columns, a few months ago, that President Granger was photographed shaking the hand of a woman who is a big cocaine trafficker. I didn’t even offer certain dimensions that could have led others to identify her. I left it vague and general. The hierarchy of CANU cannot tell me they do not know about this woman. They do. I am convinced that they do. The evidence against this woman is overwhelming. Yet CANU questioned her for a fleeting moment in 2013.
I chose not to record and publish Dataram’s complaints because I believe reporting on drug trafficking is a dangerous profession in Guyana. There are things I know but I have never even touched on them, even in a single line in my columns. The question that obviously will be asked of me is that the government has changed, so journalists should be safer. I don’t buy that even for a second. There are high-ranking policemen and CANU officials that are dubious characters. These people will kill journalists. What can the Granger Administration do for you after you are dead?
I believe that if journalists are killed over investigative journalism into the drug trade, there will be serious investigations ordered by the President. But that doesn’t mean the killers will be caught. That doesn’t mean the evidence will be easy to procure. Rogue cops and rogue members of the anti-narcotics agencies are not little boys. These are dangerous people with silicone anger on their faces. They will try to silence you. They have the resources.
What is unbelievable and also stupid about people in CANU and the police force, is that they think that when they intercept drug pushers and take their cocaine and money, these people will remain reticent forever. Some do. Others don’t. Some confide to members of the media. I know about what took place during a CANU raid on a house on the East Bank close to Georgetown. Half of the millions found in the house were not recorded. I am going to leave it as vague as that, suffice it to say, the East Bank village is not far from Georgetown.
One should give the Coalition Government the benefit of the doubt – they are new in office and with time they will confront the drugs trade. But security officials involved in trafficking and stealing drug money aren’t going to get scared and run away.
I sent away Mr. Dataram because it is my unshakeable belief that large media houses should pursue those accusations – the type Dataram is making – and not individual media operatives. In the case of these media houses, they will be careful not to publish the byline of their journalists.
This country’s population is too small for the media community not to receive sensitive information on the cocaine trade. Also, this country’s population is too small for huge drug barons to not come under the radar of CANU and the police. The simple fact is that Georgetown’s society is tiny. Things leak out all the time.
I was inside the office of the Alliance For Change last month and just at random I asked one of the AFC activists if he knew a dubious character who secures bail for people. And he did. He told me what that individual does, who he does his thing for, and where you can locate him. You think the police and CANU don’t know some big names and their drug connections? In a small society there are no secrets. Sorry for turning you down Mr. Dataram but I confess; I ran away.

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Barry Dataram came to my home; I wasn’t interested

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