PNCR promises interior intelligence gathering, technologies, professional policing to combat drugs trade

The People’s National Congress Reform/A Partnership for National Unity (PNCR/APNU) on Thursday promised to establish intelligence networks in Guyana’s interior regions as part of several steps to combat narco-trafficking.

“One of our main approaches will be to win the trust and cooperation of residents in our Hinterland communities in making them a major line of defence and source of intelligence,” the PNCR/APNU said in a statement five days after the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) discovered 4.4 tonnes of cocaine in several pits about 20 miles from central Matthews Ridge in Region One (Barima-Waini).

That opposition party also cited the need for adequate satellite and ground surveillance systems to detect and track all flights into and over Guyana, whether legal or illegal. “We will also invest in training and technologies to boost our detection and surveillance capacity.”

President Irfaan Ali, speaking at Wednesday’s launch of the Guyana Defence Force’s (GDF) National Defence Institute, said government had requested “assets” from its international partners to deal with overflights in Guyana’s airspace.

The PNCR/APNU said should it form the next government in 2025, the new administration would confront drug trafficking not only as a criminal enterprise, but as a danger and threat to Guyana’s national security and territorial integrity.

CANU said the cocaine was stashed near an illegal airstrip in pits covered with wood and camouflaged with vegetation. Head of CANU, James Singh said that drug trafficking operation was occurring for the past three weeks.

The anti-drug agency, which is a department of the Ministry of Home Affairs, partly credited the success of the drugs bust to “intelligence regarding illegal flights into Guyana” and the sharing of information with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and other international partners.

However, the PNCR/APNU flagged the undetected construction and maintenance of illegal airstrips in Guyana’s hinterland, saying that would require the use of manpower and heavy-duty machinery, involve noisy and extensive deforestation and construction operations, and leave telltale footprints that could be easily detectable from the ground and air. The opposition questioned why the Guyana Defence Force did not promptly destroy such airstrips. “We, in the PNCR/APNU, remain skeptical that Guyana has an effective system to detect, let alone to destroy, these illegal airstrips,” that political party said.

According to the PNCR/APNU, the entire operation at Matthews Ridge exposes several breaches and failings which, if not vigorously confronted and addressed, would see Guyana remaining a major transshipment point for drug trafficking and a locus for other aspects of transnational organized crimes, such as gun smuggling and trafficking in persons. With CANU on record as stating that the drugs bust at Matthews Ridge was done in collaboration with the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), the PNCR/APNU registered its dismay that the Guyana Police Force could not be trusted. “For a major arm of our law enforcement apparatus to be sidelined, distrusted, and likely compromised amounts to a national crisis. Such a police force constitutes a national security threat in itself.”

Having repeatedly raised alarm over this crisis in policing in Guyana, the PNCR/APNU promised that “we will professionalize the police force and restore and enhance its credibility and effectiveness. None of this will occur under the current PPP government.”

Police Commissioner Clifton Hicken on Wednesday did not rule out an investigation being launched into the alleged role of a police officer in facilitating the drugs bust.