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Apr 13, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
Caribbean governments are unable, with their limited budgets, to wage war against drug lords. As such they are extremely reliant on external funding to aid in this fight.
Unfortunately the sums are received are grossly inadequate. The funds that the United States dedicates towards fighting drug trafficking in Guyana are laughable. These funds can do very little to aid domestic drug enforcement, which is forced to rely on limited budgetary support to boost drug interdiction efforts.
What makes the drug fight a farce in the Caribbean is not the lack of will but the lack of resources. While governments struggle to pay their drug interdiction officers, the drug lords use their wealth to buy out corrupt members of law enforcement agencies and infiltrate national institutions.
Yet the international community continues to demand that greater efforts be made by local law enforcement agencies against narco-trafficking. When these efforts yield only negligible returns as is the norm, the international community complains about a lack of will, and accuses the small countries of not doing enough.
Lack of will is really a lack of manpower and resources. Consider for example what the average drug enforcement officer makes in Guyana. Not much. What he earns can hardly be worth the risks that he has to take and yet the government wants these officers to do more against drug trafficking when they are paid so little.
Whatever is paid to these officers, the drug lords can match many times over and this is one of dilemmas facing developing countries that are keen on reducing drug trafficking.
The drug trade is a very violent undertaking. And Caribbean governments are not able to pay their officers anywhere near a decent salary to undertake such high-risk employment.
Trying to nab drug lords is also not easy. These people are well protected and there is not much that local drug enforcement agencies can do.
In recent years, the United States has successfully extradited a number of persons who were suspected to have been major players in the drug trade. Some of them have been sentenced and some are awaiting trial. It has been a highly successful experiment and one which suggests the future direction of international cooperation to combat the trade in narcotics.
Since local drug interdiction efforts are weak, and since local drug lords have tremendous influence and the resources to frustrate efforts aimed against them, what is needed to complement the strategy aimed at extraditing drug lords, is a system of cooperation that would allow external agencies to make interceptions based on intelligence provided from other countries.
It was reported recently that the major drug bust in Jamaica was said to have originated in Guyana. It was also reported that the information about the drug bust was provided from Guyana.
There have also been other major drug busts in other places where intelligence and information were received from another country.
In light of the lack of resources and the high risk of corruption, a better strategy would be instead of local operatives trying to dent the local trade, they should serve as information feeds for foreign drug enforcement agencies who should make the busts.
It may be argued that in this case, the drug lords based locally would escape prosecution. Well, they are escaping prosecution in any event and given the amount of influence they can wield because of the money at their disposal, they are not likely to be successfully caught in Guyana in any event.
However, if this shipments and couriers are regularly intercepted, these hits will hurt them financially and they will become unreliable to those who are supplying them with the drugs. As such, they will be pushed out of the business.
The drug trade has grown too large in the Caribbean. It is now a major threat to the governments of the Caribbean because of the level of support that drug lords enjoy.
In Jamaica, we saw an entire community come out demanding that the Jamaican government ease on a person suspected of drug trafficking. Hundreds of persons took to the streets, including many women in defence of the suspect.
In the end, the army had to be called out and in the ensuing battle, the amount of munitions found in the hands of those outside of the law enforcement arm was enough to equip some of the smaller armories of the Caribbean. What we had was private armies existing within garrisoned communities.
It shows the real threat that drug trafficking already poses to the exercise of sovereign responsibility within the Caribbean. The governments of the region need help but this help is best preceded by arrangements that would allow greater sharing of intelligence so that information provided can lead to seizures.
To ask Caribbean governments with their limited resources to go after drug lords is to ask them to engage in warfare within their own countries. These governments are not going to be able to do this unless the drug empires are first weakened through external seizures.
GRA catch EXXON trying to hunch GUYANA over 11 BUS dollars in one shot!!!!
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