you mean you will take time off from your rum drinking to provide us with data

Yeah, just fuh wan *****hole like you!!!

The annual U.S. State Department narcotics report on Guyana for the past year told Guyanese what they already know: that pro-government drug dons operate openly and with impunity, and that no real effort is being made by authorities to resource state arms responsible for eradicating the scourge.

The 2010 U.S. State Department Inter-national Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) reinforced the widespread belief that the nation on South America’s northeast coast -- which houses the headquarters of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) secretatriat, remains a transshipment point for drugs produced in the mainland and headed to the streets of Europe and North America.

The report that government usually takes to task as mean and unfair, also said that authorities do little to “identify and confront” major drug traffickers and their organizations as they operate freely in the city, townships and the interior.

Bribes and coercion are the order of the day in the country the report said, even as National Security Minister Clement Rohee described the compilation as “downright deceptive and misleading.”

As if to prove its case that no harm can confront a major don in Guyana, it pointed to the arrest and convictions of several major players from the country jailed or censured by the American justice system, rather than by Guyanese courts.

Opposition parties in an out of the single-Caribbean trade bloc headquarters chamber, 65-seat parliament, rights groups and local media have echoed similar sentiments for more than a decade, particularly in the last 12 years during the administration of President Bharrat Jagdeo. Jagdeo’s is ineligible to contest general elections due in the summer.

“Government counternarcotics efforts remain hindered by inadequate resources for, and poor coordination among law enforcement agencies, an overburdened and inefficient judiciary; and the lack of a coherent and prioritized national security strategy. Murders, kidnappings, and other violent crimes commonly believed to be linked with narcotics trafficking are regularly reported in the Guyanese media.”

The report did not go into great detail on the lack of resources but critics, ex-army officers in particular and major opposition parties, have pointed to superior equipment available to the military and police in the ‘70s and ‘80s when the trafficking problem was just a fledgling issue, way below today’s level.

Back then the Guyana Defense Force had at least eight helicopters, at least a similar number of aircraft to patrol air, land and sea, and more than twice the number of soldiers on its payroll.

Today, only one of three choppers is operable, and only one Chinese-built aircraft is serviceable.

This has reinforced the belief among critics that the Jagdeo administration has done more to create an enabling environment than any in the country’s history. Comingling involving known drug dealers, money launderers and officials at the highest levels, is common knowledge to the ordinary man.

Yet Minister Rohee says that this is not so, because stringent efforts have been made to tackle trafficking.

He described the missive as containing the “usual and few grudging plaudits sprinkled here and there in the text of the document,” pointing to improvements at CANU, the special anti drugs unit and greater collaboration among state agencies.

©2011 Community Newspaper Group

Churchill, ALL dat we know. My point is that the Drug Trade is only about 2% of the GDP.  The Police, CANT  and other Agencies continue to support and condone the Drug Trade. And yes much more needs to be done.

Internal American government cables on the growing drug trade in Guyana sounded alarm bells about the growing power of the narco sector on all levels of society as far back as 2006 and rebuked the Bharrat Jagdeo administration for its tolerance and indifference as well as its lukewarm approach to eliminating the scourge.

American fears are contained in the latest WikiLeaks revelations on the small English-speaking South American nation. The cables were released on websites last weekend and appear to only confirm what everyone in Guyana except governing party officials seem to know about the cocaine trade and its connections to authorities.

Former Ambassador Roland Bullen said authorities worried that the lack of resources, porous borders, corrupt and ineffective law enforcement agencies and officials as well as easy access to the Caribbean Europe and North America made Guyana an ideal place for international trafficking. “In other words, these narco-criminals see Guyana as a country where they can operate with impunity.”

Bullen and successive ambassadors made a strong case for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to set up an office in the former British colony but various points of disagreement including a suitable location for an office have worked to ensure that there is no DEA office in the country to this day.

By August 2007, Charge d’ Affaires Michael Thomas expressed similar concerns and asked for funds to set up an office but complained that hardline Guyana government positions ensured all efforts were scuttled. “The project is no longer viable due to the government of Guyana’s failure to identify an acceptable location for the unit and their lack of progress in addressing drug trafficking issues,” Thomas said.

Talks about a dedicated DEA office date way back to 1999, Bullen said, noting that serving Guyana from the agency’s office in neighboring Trinidad was not good enough as agents there were fully occupied with local activities. “DEA has done an excellent job serving both nations, but Guyana demands greater focus and its own DEA staff to fully address the severe narco-trafficking situation on the ground.”

Reacting Sunday, James Singh, director of the Customs Anti Narcotics Unit (CANU) said authorities are working to pull the situation back, noting “no one in the country can call himself a don anymore. We are free to go after anybody and are under no pressure not to do so,” he said pointing to recent parliamentary approval of several anti drug bills including forfeiture, laundering and communication interception bills.

Annual State Department reports have chronicled the situation in the Caribbean trade bloc headquarters nation, noting that drugs and money laundering play a significant role in the country’s gross domestic product and that cocaine is hidden in every item exported from the country, be it noodles, timber or furniture.

©2011 Community Newspaper Group

Which Minister in the PPP, had his visa refused by the US Government?

Who goat bite?

Churchill,

An old stalwart like you should speak more intelligently than this unless you are suffering from senility. The US declared war on poverty in the sixties and we still have poverty. The Nixon Admin. declared war on drugs in the early seventies and we have more drugs on the streets of America than ever before. How the hell can you expect a country like Guyana to stop drug trafficking?

Quote "How the hell can you expect a country like Guyana to stop drug trafficking?"unquote

The USA can do what they did in Panama to Noriega, hold Don Ramotar and take him in chains and placed his arse in the USA Jails. The Buck stop with him in Guyana. There is no way that people will believe that he does not know of the drugs running.

After they finished with Ramotar then the investigations starts with Jagdeo and the GAC debacle.

You want to impose bullyism on Guyana?

Are you always so stupid or is today a special occasion?

Granger blazes Chronicle for inaccurate report

- says President might have been misinformed
Opposition Leader, David Granger, has stated that the report by the Guyana Chronicle which reported him

President Donald Ramotar

as saying that Guyana is developed with drug money is rooted in inaccuracy. President Donald Ramotar was quoted by the Chronicle as calling on Granger, the Leader of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), to issue an apology to all Guyanese for his “insulting comment.”
Granger made it pellucid that he did not make the statements that President Ramotar attributed to him.
“On Tuesday I said that ‘the Public security crisis will not correct itself. Narco-trafficking is the engine of growth that is driving this country’s high rates of money laundering, gun running, execution murders and armed robberies. Violent crime is scaring foreign investors, driving away the educated elite, undermining economic growth and impeding social development.”
The Opposition Leader said that he believes Ramotar was misinformed.
Granger said, “I never accused business men of being narco-traffickers or that they are responsible for bringing crime into the country.”
A letter was also issued by the Director of APNU Public Relations Office, Mark Archer to the Editor in Chief of the Chronicle Newspaper.
The letter said, “The Leader of the Opposition Brigadier David A.Granger refutes the President’s allegation and deems erroneous, all subsequent remarks reported by the Chronicle in the article, pertaining to his 2014

APNU Leader
David Granger

Nightmare at Timehri

Cocaine in awara; cocaine in fish; cocaine in pumpkin; cocaine in false bottom suitcase; cocaine in lumber; cocaine in coconut milk; cocaine in liquor; cocaine in shoes; cocaine in glue; cocaine in achar; cocaine in pineapple; cocaine in genip; cocaine in scrap iron.
Now we learn about cocaine in cheese rolls and pine tarts. What next? You name it and the cocaine smugglers have tried it. It seems as if any and everything can be used to conceal illegal narcotics.
This is why it is so frightening to even travel. And why travellers have to take extraordinary precautions when going overseas because you never know when someone can slip something… plant something or ask you to carry something and unknown to you those things contain illicit substances.
Many Guyanese have therefore adopted a “no-carry” policy. It does not matter how long or how well they know somebody; it does not matter if that person is a friend or relative, they are not taking anything for anyone in their luggage.
If asked, the answer is a firm “Sorry and No! I am not taking anything for you to give to your friends or relatives overseas. I am not doing that at all.”
This is an understandable policy. The sheer number of drug busts that have occurred through our national airport makes the very thought of passing through that facility a nightmare. You never know what is being moved on the same flight as you. You never know who is sitting next to you and what they can slip into your baggage.
One guy told me that he has stopped taking washroom breaks while in the air. He cannot take the chance unless he is travelling with a member of his household who can keep an eye out for him while he goes to the toilet.
Other persons are cagey about carrying on conversations with strangers, something that many travellers do to help pass the boredom of a long cross-Atlantic journey.
There is one individual who does not travel with any luggage when leaving Guyana. He is so scared of someone planting something in his luggage that he has long decided that whenever he has to travel overseas he does so without any luggage.
This always perplexes the immigration authorities where he disembarks because when he is asked how many pieces of checked luggage he has and answers none, they presume that he is already living in their country and thus he is subject to a great deal of questioning.
He however prefers this grilling as to the purposes of his travel rather than having to go through the anxiety of wondering if someone is going to plant something in his luggage.  He of course has the advantage of getting through the immigration and customs quickly.
Legitimate passengers are scared of travelling out of Guyana. This is bad for tourism. No one has any hassle about travelling into Guyana. No one smuggles cocaine into Guyana on commercial aircraft. However if you visit Guyana you have to leave, and this is where your anxieties begin. Most persons are nervous at the thought of leaving Guyana to return overseas, more so if you are travelling through the Cheddi Jagan International Airport at Timehri.
Guyana will lose out when it comes to tourists, because no one wants to be anxious at the end of their vacation. As such, people are not going to take the hassle of spending their holidays in Guyana. They will go somewhere else because just a few trips a year through our airport, having to look constantly over your shoulder is enough to give anyone a nervous breakdown.
Guyana is also going to have a bad international image if this trend continues. It is not as if drugs are not smuggled through other airports. Definitely drugs leave other Caribbean airports as they do here. The drug trade has wide wings. But I do not believe that anywhere else is there so much ingenuity in the ways in which drugs are trafficked as through our international airport.
Already, the country is paying a huge price for drug trafficking. When western countries learn that a flight is from Guyana, red flags are raised. The immigration authorities are more rigorous in their questioning and the luggage of passengers is subjected to more detailed checks.
This is the price everyone that leaves Guyana pays for the country’s reputation as a major transshipment point for drugs.
With a continued bad image and with a high incidence of drug busts, the airlines are going to demand and implement intensified security checks. This is going to be the straw that will break the camel’s back, because if this happens, persons are going to be body-searched in the most invasive of ways. And this will force commercial air traffic to dry up in Guyana.
This will not be good for the country, and so action needs to be taken to ensure that it is safer and more relaxing for legitimate travellers to pass through the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.