Guyana’s ambassador to Canada, Harrinarine Nawbatt
Guyana’s ambassador to Canada, Harrinarine Nawbatt, says he finds it extremely difficult that Ottawa would grant refugee status to someone who makes a claim implicating a government minister without confirming, through its embassy here, the validity of the allegations.
Nawbatt, who was recently posted to Canada, made the remarks even as damning allegations have surfaced about Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee coercing an information technology expert to bring down two opposition websites, and also trying to pay him to hack into the email addresses of top opposition political figures.
Rohee has since denied the allegations, and has flayed immigration consultant Balwant Persaud, who presented the petition of the man and his wife, as well as the Canadian authorities.
Speaking with the Guyana Times International in Canada recently, Nawbatt said it was the duty of the Canadian Hight Commission in Guyana to conduct an investigation to determine whether the allegations against Rohee were true. “That’s the role of the embassy,” Nawbatt, a former housing and water minister, insisted.
The IT specialist said he had refused to take payments from Rohee for bringing down www.propogandapress.org and www. guyanaobservernews.org. However, his wife was later kidnapped and taken to a resort, where she was threatened.
On March 31, Judge Waters ruled that the Canadian Refugee Protection Division determined that the claimants are conventional refugees and therefore the division accepted the claims.
Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee
The Guyana government has on occasion expressed concern over what it views as inconsistency in Canadian policy, which entertains refugee claims from Guyana while it deports other would-be immigrants (including some with criminal records) to Guyana. Asked to comment on this, Nawbatt said this was a Caricom problem. “Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and Guyana – we’ve all complained about deportees being sent back. Some of these deportees have acquired, let’s say, “their skills”, in North America. Many of the deportees start in the drug trade and branch out into other criminal activities. If there were not a market for drugs in North America there wouldn’t be a drug trade,” Nawbatt said.
He said greater focus has to be on dealing with the issue where it is occurring at source. “Deporting some offenders is not a solution for anyone. They are not born citizens of the country, but some of them have been there for twenty or thirty years. We don’t have the infrastructure to handle them when they’re deported.”
With respect to refugees, over the last ten years, figures have shown that some 3,148 Guyanese were granted refugee status in Canada alone. However, the number of persons granted refugee status has significantly decreased between 2007 and 2010. Figures ranged from as high as 636 Guyanese in 2003 to as low as 94 in 2010. Guyanese authorities had expressed concern that many persons who apply for refugee status in various countries often make fake police reports about persecution in their home country, and use this as a basis for applying to other countries for refuge. Crime Chief Seelall Persaud confirmed that the police have been receiving a large amount of fake ‘stolen passport’ reports, and added that he is aware that many of these Guyanese make claims for refugee status to a number of foreign countries, particularly Canada. Local authorities have also reiterated that, many times, the applications for refugee status are false, and further tarnish Guyana’s reputation.
But Canada itself has begun to implement more stringent measures in granting refugee status to applicants. On March 30, 2010, the Canadian government introduced a bill to vastly reduce the time that it takes to decide whether or not a claimant is a genuine refugee, and to speed up removals of failed claimants. Up to mid last year, it was reported that there were about 15,000 failed claimants from various countries who are waiting to be removed from Canada. It is also estimated that there are 38,000 unsuccessful refugee applicants whose whereabouts are unknown. It is not known whether they have left Canada or remain underground.
