October 2000

GUYANA NOT BOWING TO U.S. BLACKMAIL

Guyana finds that it is not getting any cooperation from the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, because the tiny South American country refuses to sign a maritime agreement with Washington which would give unlimited power to US coastguard vessels chasing narco boats in Guyanese waters.

By Bert Wilkinson

Georgetown: It took several months before officials here finally understood that the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) planned to withhold assistance from Guyana unless this former British colony signs a maritime agreement with Washington.

When local narcotics officials last February asked the DEA for help in searching a Greek-registered ship suspected of having thousands of kilogrammes of cocaine in its cargo holds, the DEA bluntly refused, citing the absence of an interdiction pact with Guyana.

‘It is a mild form of blackmail,’ Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj said then, referring to the thumbs down the government got from an organisation that had, in 1998, rushed in specialists to Guyana to help locate more than 3,000 kilos of cocaine hidden on the St Vincent-registered MV Danielsen. The haul was easily the largest in Guyana’s history and one of the biggest in the English-speaking Caribbean.

The Danielsen has since been confiscated, sold to a local contractor and refurbished, and the money placed in an escrow account to cater for any possible future legal challenges.

Officials say they now understand why the DEA has not extended similar help in the search of the MV New Charm, which is currently sitting at the southwestern end of the Georgetown Harbour, its frame rusting from lack of maintenance.

Unless Guyana signs the ‘Shiprider Agreement’, the country can expect no help from the DEA, they say.

The ship had sailed from neighbouring Suriname and was headed for Rotterdam in The Netherlands with a quantity of rice from exporters in both Guyana and Suriname when authorities impounded it. An initial search turned up 100 kilos of cocaine, but sleuths think more is hidden way below the waterline.

But given the fact that this English-speaking South American republic is one of the last countries refusing to sign the so-called Shiprider Agreement with the United States, no help will be forthcoming, at least until a deal is inked.

Negotiations held in the last few months have broken down, in part because Guyana wants to follow the lead of Barbados and Jamaica in placing limits on the powers of US coastguard vessels chasing narco boats into territorial waters without permission from Guyanese authorities.

This is the essence of the agreement the United States wants Guyana to sign, but authorities say carte blanche permission will not be given.

Under the agreement outlined by Washington back in 1996, a US vessel must be allowed to enter local waters once a local law enforcement personnel is aboard.

But in the event that this is not possible, the marines will still be allowed to chase vessels deep into Guyana’s waterways with or without the presence of a local ‘Shiprider’.

‘All we can say at the moment is that the counterproposals that Guyana has submitted to us have been sent to Washington for review. We have received these draft proposals and they are out of our hands,’ said Henry Bisharat, a spokesman at the US Embassy in Georgetown.

Guyana several years ago signed an over-flight agreement with the United States, but even this has not been fully activated. That deal allows US planes to enter freely and use Guyana’s airspace in chasing planes suspected of transporting narcotics to the US mainland.

Washington had also wanted to station a few dozen personnel here to run a small tracking station monitoring aircraft in the region, but no decision was made on that proposal.

UN figures show that a full 40% of the estimated 200,000 tonnes of cocaine shipped to the United States annually passes through the Caribbean and Central America. Tight control over the waterways and airspace of the region is seen as the answer to dealing with cartels shipping drugs from South America.

The current stand-off between Guyana and the United States means that the former is missing out on some training opportunities in drug interdiction and on acquiring equipment for its own under-equipped coastguard.

The government recently sent a team of military experts to the United States to source boats for the coastguard, but they met with no success. Canada and China have since stepped in, offering to help Guyana locate the equipment it needs.

The rush to acquire fast patrol boats for the coastguard has more to do with Guyana’s current hostile relationship with its neighbour Suriname than with attempts to halt drug smuggling.

Guyana and Suriname are currently engaged in a military stand-off over their longstanding border dispute. Suriname has announced it has spent about $48 million buying eight patrol boats, aircraft and military hardware, and Guyana is unwilling to let that challenge go unanswered. - Third World Network Features/IPS

About the writer: Bert Wilkinson is a correspondent for Inter Press Service, with whose permission the above article has been reprinted.

2107/2000