Reply to "Another PNC thug exposed"

President Bharrat Jagdeo refused a request to facilitate the arrest of Suriname President Desi Bouterse during a visit here, saying that he was democratically-elected by his people.

Jagdeo made the revelation today during the opening session of Guyana Defence Force’s annual officers’ conference, where he was asked by a senior officer about how the release of recent WikiLeaks cables would affect the country’s relationship with Suriname and the agreements that have been inked with Bouterse.

Desi Bouterse

Cables, sent by US diplomats allege that Bouterse, who was convicted for drug trafficking in The Netherlands in 1999, remained involved in the drug trade until 2006 and was also cooperating withGuyanese drug kingpin Roger Khan. The cables said that the two men are believed to be involved in various murders and plots to murder former Surinamese Minister of Justice Chandrikapersad Santokhi and procurer general Subhas Punwasi, who were responsible for a clampdown in drug crime. The cables also alleged that Khan—now serving time in a US prison for drug trafficking—traded guns for drugs with Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

“…A particular foreign nation asked us if we will arrest the president of Suriname when he comes here because he is wanted…and I said to them no. I said maybe you can get some other country to do this,” Jagdeo said in response to the officer. Members of the media were asked to leave at this point.

Jagdeo pointed out the citizens of Suriname chose their leader and he questioned who are Guyanese to say who the country should work with when the people of Suriname, through a democratic system, made their choice. He said Guyana has to work with the country’s legitimate representative.

Bouterse had visited Guyana twice late last year.

While Jagdeo did not directly address the Khan-Bouterse connection in the presence of the media, he told officers that he would be “happy” to see “whatever comes out on Guyana” in the WikiLeaks cables because it exposes how policies affecting other countries are made in the developed world based on impressions of ambassadors.

“An ambassador can go into a room and write about people’s dogs, the leaders’ dogs or how many girlfriends he has and they would go to cocktail circuits and send back reports about impressions about people within high offices across the government.

“They can come to a meeting and report what you have not said…and that gets up to the capital of the country and then policies in relation to the countries are made or influenced on the basis of these reports,” Jagdeo said.

He added that this was how the developed countries conduct their business, while noting that the cables expose how “frivolous” and “fickle” and how “in-transparent” “some of these things are.”

He said the cables are not something that people love to talk about as “they” don’t want many countries to pay attention to them. “But what it will do, it will change American diplomacy and hopefully it will make diplomacy from the developed world more transparent,” Jagdeo said.

He further opined that the cables will trigger some major shift in the way diplomacy works or alternatively more secured communications.