Guyana faces a stark threat from narcotics and the United States continues to have concerns about the difficulties in obtaining convictions in local courts and is looking at adding to its significant contribution to the anti-drug fight here.

“I think Guyana faces a very serious narcotics threat. There are a number of South American narcotics organisations that wish to use Guyanese territory to further their shipments of largely cocaine to a variety of countries including the United States,” ChargÉ d’Affaires at the US embassy here, Bryan Hunt told Stabroek News in an exclusive and wide-ranging interview on Thursday.

Emphasising that Guy-ana is making progress and has shown a willingness to work with the international community on the narcotics problem and there are some very dedicated individuals in the security forces who are making a significant effort to try to put some of the drug organisations out of business, Hunt added that his government also wants to see increased conviction rates not only for narcotics but for serious crimes.

Bryan D Hunt

“Guyana [has] made some fairly significant seizures in the last year, not the least of which was finding the self-propelled semi-submersible in the interior and putting that, effectively shipyard, out of business so I think Guyana is doing quite a bit. The very fact that we have seizures at the airport indicates that Guyana is doing quite a bit, the fact that we have increased seizures both at the passenger terminal and the cargo terminal indicates that Guyana’s intelligence and understanding of the problem continues to grow and they’re able to use that in order to stop some of the trafficking,” the American diplomat said. He noted that putting drug traffickers out of business would not happen in a year as even in the US with its tremendous amount of law enforcement resources, traffickers still operate.

“When we assess how is Guyana doing in the fight against drugs, we take as the first instance those line officers… responsible for the seizures, the disruption, preventing the drugs from getting to the streets because even if, for example, there is not a successful conviction in the case involving the boat that was found recently in the Demerara River which I very much hope there will be but even if there isn’t, at the very least we have kept that cocaine off of the streets and we are talking a very significant amount of cocaine that was kept off the streets,” he said.

He also noted that there are agents from the US Drug Enforcement Admi-nistration (DEA) working here and said that they are making a difference. He said that locals benefit from training, equipment, as well as intelligence sharing with the local DEA office. The diplomat added that the Embassy is working with the DEA as they move towards establishing additional positions.

Judiciary

As it relates to obtaining convictions, Hunt said Washington hopes to work to strengthen the local judiciary. “I think there is an issue across the board with the ability to obtain convictions in Guyanese courts. I don’t think it’s unique to narcotics cases. I think when you look at the successful conviction statistics for cases that are brought by the Guyanese government, there is an issue with getting successful convictions but at the same time the judiciary here is independent. We, as the US government, would hope to be able to work with the judiciary to strengthen its ability to carry out its constitutional role and it’s very important role in criminal convictions,” the official said.

He pointed out that it comes with a degree of work and effort and is not something that is going to be fixed overnight. The US will continue to work with the police, the prosecutors’ office, the forensics laboratory as well as the courts to try to build that ability to have stronger and better conviction rates, he said.

Specifically, he said, the US has worked on training programmes for local prosecutors and is looking to do more. “We will shortly have an assessment mission from a non-governmental organisation which has done a great deal of work on judicial reform throughout Latin America to discuss with stakeholders what other assistance might be useful in terms of strengthening prosecutorial and judicial capacity and it’s our intention to examine the results of that initial set of consultations and then to work with the relevant ministries to fund the additional training programmes or capital assistance that’s required in order to try to move both the prosecutorial and judicial services to a point where they need to be so that we have higher conviction rates not just in narcotics crimes but across the board in these very serious criminal cases,” Hunt said.

Matrix

The diplomat also disclosed that the US has agreed to finance various components of the Guyana Forensic Science Laboratory to add that capacity to Guyana’s matrix of tools to go after narcotics traffickers and get convictions. First, he said, there is a need to get the base right and bring the $1 billion lab up to international standards.

At the moment, Hunt said, the emphasis is to work with what has already been built. He said the lab must be brought up to the necessary standards to be able to carry out work that meets international standards in trace analysis, ballistics, handwriting analysis and two other components.

Asked about assistance the US can offer in terms of DNA analysis, Hunt said that a number of experts have taken a look at the forensics lab and while “at some point in the future it would be a wonderful thing for Guyana to have a DNA capability, we first have to get the base right, we first have to get those initial components of a forensics laboratory operating with qualified personnel.”

The diplomat disclosed that they have identified two divisions from where they will send personnel to the United States to obtain the necessary international certifications. Once those persons have the baseline international certification, they will then come back and need to work within the lab to demonstrate that they are appropriately using the new skills and carrying out the work up to international standards, he said.

According to Hunt, once the divisions are operating at the necessary international standards, they can look at what gets added next whether it’s DNA or other advanced sciences that may be equally useful but that discussion will be done after the base is right. “Right now your forensic laboratory is not considering adding an immediate DNA capacity,” he said. “DNA would be a significant step up from where the current capacity is. We have to get the current capacity that was built functioning correctly with the qualified personnel to administer that before we take the next step upwards.”

While DNA analysis is important, it is far from the only forensic technology that can yield viable convictions and there are far more useful tools that can be used to obtain the forensic evidence needed for conviction, Hunt said. In the Guyanese context right now, having ballistics, fingerprint and trace analysis is going to ultimately be far more important to increasing the conviction rate in the immediate future, he emphasized.

As it relates to the Automated Fingerprint Identification System supplied by the US to the police, Hunt said he understands that it has helped the police to bring closure to a number of cases. It has allowed them to take fingerprint fragments that they had from various crime scenes and run them against not only a database here but against a regional database, he noted. “They told me it has helped them to close a number of crimes already,” he said.

In terms of other security-related assistance, Hunt said that there are several activities ongoing and in train. He said that a team from the US Southern Command is helping the Coast Guard set up the necessary maintenance and logistics trails for the ‘Metal Shark’ boats donated by the US government last year. He said they have also been asked to look at the communication packages for those boats which includes base stations and radios, among others, to allow them to be in routine communication with Coast Guard handlers and they are moving to finalise that package. He disclosed too that the US is also looking to bring in more advanced training to assist the coast guard in learning how best to carry out boardings, stoppings of suspect vessels and those sort of activities.

In addition, the Americans have already prepared a series of specialized training courses to be used by the local police academy and discussions are ongoing over timing to bring down instructors to begin to train police officials as to how to deliver those courses as part of their baseline curriculum. There is also ongoing assistance to the container control programme both in terms of technical training and equipment and the US is in discussions with the Guyana government on how they might assist with airport security as well, Hunt disclosed.