Some facts about a concerning situation

Jun 30, 2021 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

Government has expressed concern over the volume of transient migrants, surmising that a human trafficking ring is involved, with great justification. During the torturous 2020 pre and post elections saga, there was ample evidence of the facilitation of human trafficking by leaders of an identified political configuration.
Allegations were rife that large sums were being expended from the nation’s coffers to facilitate travel, house and support illegal aliens and to provide them with Guyanese identity documents such as birth certificates and national identity cards, with Guyanese names.
A news item published on 14th November 2020, headlined “Five in custody after 26 Haitians ‘discovered’ in suspected smuggling ring” related that twenty-six(26) Haitian nationals were placed in protective care after police, during multiple operations, discovered them in a suspected smuggling racket at a city hotel and a minibus on the Linden-Mabura Road.
In protective care are 10 men, nine (9) women, and seven (7) children (two boys and five girls).
The children were proven not to be related to any of the adults in the party, which is alarming as revelations are circulating worldwide of incidents of kidnapping of persons for body parts, as well as for the usual reasons persons, including children, are kidnapped, primarily as slave labourers and sex slaves.
Making one’s country an in-transit hub to facilitate incursions by human aliens into neighbouring countries goes against international protocols and can create antipathetic reactions from the country being invaded.
For instance, the Government of Brazil has complained to the Government of Guyana about this country being used as a transshipment point for illegal aliens entering Brazil.
Several incidents reported by the media of Suriname last year referenced a surge of Haitians entering Suriname illegally from Guyana.
The 26 Haitians had provided false information to immigration officials on their arrival in Guyana, which caused suspicion of human smuggling, so a deportation order was sought and granted by Principal Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus, at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court in December, 2020.
However, the Chief Justice, on December 3 last, issued a conservatory order halting the deportation of the 26 Haitians, in an action filed by Attorney Darren Wade against AG Anil Nandlall, contending that the order for deportation issued by the magistrate was arbitrary, and in violation of the fundamental rights of his clients.
After the Chief Justice issued the Conservatory Order, the Attorney-General informed her that their passports would be returned and they would be delivered to a location of their own choosing. This was done and within days, they had disappeared, validating the Government’s contention that their movements were facilitated by a smuggling ring operating out of Guyana.
Subsequently, it was reported that Allandres Archer had withdrawn his name from representing the 26 Haitians. Archer claimed, “I was contacted by Attorney-at-Law Darren Wade to give an affidavit to be a witness and it ended up, I was the person who was taking the government to court… I never agreed to that; I never wanted no (sic!) part of it, I received the people from the airport. I brought them to the hotel, I checked them in, then we got arrested and that was basically what I agreed on: But to take the government to court or to fight on behalf of the Haitians was never my intention.”
It is important to note, as a matter of great significance, that the lawyer who went to great lengths to champion the cause of the 26 Haitians who breached Guyana’s immigration prerequisites is a staunch PNC member.

Yours very truly,
Todd A Morgan

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