Narcotics raises its head again, politicians must keep their heads 

Sep 12, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – An enormous drug bust in Region One has rippled through the news, and President Ali has rippled with fiery intensity.  His government will do everything that it can to“break the back” and “dismantle” criminal networks.  On paper, it has resounding appeal. Governments around the world that are far cleaner than President Ali’s PPP Government have said less and delivered more.

This is the challenge for President Ali, the PPP Government, and all politicians in Guyana.  They have all had much to say in the past, and again today, about the narcotics plague.  The results have not been what I would call inspiring.  As narcotics registers its pervasive and powerful presence in the fabric of Guyanese society some more, its frightening head must be recognized.  At the same time, Guyanese politicians-the entire cohort of them-would do well to manage their minds and keeps their heads in the right place.

A decade or more ago, the PPP Government rolled out its Drug Master Plans I and II.  The cobwebs overtook them soon enough on the shelves and cabinets in which those plans were consigned, lost to memory, and succumbed to the effects of atrophy.  As we all know too well, when a muscle or a body does not move for a long time, then stoppage and wreckage take over.  Very few masterminds, if any, were apprehended, almost nobody prosecuted during that period.  The occasional mules, yes, to keep up appearances; but masterminds, not a chance.

The coalition came in for close to half a decade, and the alarmed cries of its own were heard.  Too much squeezing, too much policing, too much locking down of lucrative drug action.  Despite the squawks of pain, there were still some cracks through which the wily slipped.  Back came the PPP on a wave of euphoria in 2020 and drugs made a parallel comeback, but on the quiet and distant side.  Far away in Hamburg, Germany and Antwerp, Belgium, tons of cocaine had made their way past an array of scanners and systems and sentinels in Guyana.  These works of art are always breathtaking in scope, in audacity, and in the comprehensive nature of people controlled and the flows that are allowed to happen uninhibited.  Under the radar, for sure; but uninhibited.  Closer to home, there is Matthews Ridge, and over four tons of neatly packaged powered stuff.

I just gave the sketchiest of outlines of where Guyana is with its drug trafficking, it being an increasingly notorious transshipment point for product bound for elsewhere.  It should suffice, even when I left out who got held up in the US, whose property was searched, and which officers of the law were questioned.  Through all this, from way back and again today, my advice to governments and leaders has been unchanging.  Be careful with the company kept.  In Guyanese patois, be sensible with whom bundles are tied, i.e., with whom business is done.  More pointedly, and going for the jugular, the ongoing counsel has been constant: be vigilant with whose money is accepted.  The latter is where there is open-ended exposure, where political leadership rhetoric runs into some raw sewage.  For when political parties take money from those with dubious records, or those with known reputations, then they risk compromising themselves.  In a nutshell, political donations and campaign financing are not a one-way street.  It is not free money, because there comes a time when payback is expected, demanded by circumstances.

I attempt to put matters gently. In a country with porous campaign financing and political donor laws, anybody can give, and any political figure or group is free to take.  The big dealers give a big hand, probably the biggest.  Not saying no then means that there had better be preparation to look the other way later.  National governments are in a precarious place.  Depending on what they took before and from whom, they limit their freedom of action.  The more tens of millions that are taken, the more political indebtedness there is.  National governments are also usually privy to some high-level intelligence from authoritative foreign sources.  Who is a big-time trafficker, who is on the radar.  Like I said, those who favored with their generosity before, expect favors in their time of need.  Street executions can grow cold.  Extraditions developments stonewalled, as was the case up until recently.  It is the old practice of who has got whose back.  Those who delivered well in that role during elections anticipate reciprocation from the top when their names are called.  Recall that the bigger the contribution, the higher the reach.

Politicians find themselves in a bind, none more than governing ones.  Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.  There is the US on the one hand (a helpful friend); and there are local friends (the generous ones) that must be protected.  The regular course of action settled for by ruling politicians is to make big, fat, sweet, speeches.  There are those who are all about respect for the rule of law and order.  Then there are those who are all sound and fury about knocking down, tearing apart, and rolling over drug networks and similar such enterprises.  A barren wilderness is what has followed relative to enforcement actions taken.  In sum, when politicians extend their hands, they already lose part of their heads.  Thus: they are stuck with rhetoric that fools none, delivers nothing.  We shall see what is different this time.  One last thing: the foreign owners of those drugs in Matthews Ridge don’t usually take developments like those sitting down.  No! That cost of doing business is not factored into their formulas.  Prices are extracted.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• dismantle, GHK Lall, Government, politicians, PPP

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