Security and deportees

Following the February 2003 infamous jailbreak, Guyana experienced a wave of unprecedented criminal activities.

While the crime situation was relatively new to Guyana, other countries of the Caribbean and further afield were already experiencing high levels of criminal activities and of a more violent nature.

In 2001, leaders of Caricom mandated a taskforce to look into the causes of crime, which have resulted in escalating fear and panic, with implications for law and order in member countries.

The report coming out of the taskforce made clear the interconnected nature of the newer forms of criminality, involving illicit drugs, gun running and money laundering. It also addressed the impact of deportees on crime and security.

It is well accepted that a contributory factor to the escalation of criminal activities in the Caribbean, especially in the case of Guyana, was the arrival of criminal deportees from mainly North American countries. Some of these deportees brought a special sophistication in the execution of crimes. And most would agree that dealing with such sophisticated crimes is not an easy task for local law enforcement officers. In fact, such operation requires cooperation at every level of crime fighting and requires continuous support, both in the form of human and financial assistance from international partners in the areas of intelligence gathering, forensics and strengthening investigative capabilities, and so on.

The U.S. government has offered assistance to the region on many fronts. For example, in June this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Caricom ministers to reaffirm the Caribbean-U.S. partnership in several key priority areas, including the reduction of drug trafficking and repatriation of criminal deportees from U.S. to the Caribbean. These matters have always caused some amount of tension between the two sides, and there is a perception that stakeholders have not been able, or perhaps are not willing, to “walk the talk” on resolving all outstanding issues.

Only recently, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano travelled to Nassau, The Bahamas, for the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) Dialogue and to underscore the U.S. administration’s commitment to strengthening bilateral cooperation with the region. CBSI partners have since concluded a series of technical working groups and collectively identified several key security priorities for work to be done.

The second Caribbean-United States Security Cooperation Dialogue ended with both parties agreeing to adopt a sustained approach to citizen safety in the Caribbean by strengthening budgetary measures to meet recurring security costs.

A joint statement issued at the end of conference said that Washington and the Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries agreed to strengthen the region’s “security structure and institutions, such as the Caricom Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS) in order to more effectively promote regional and international coordination, the sharing of best practices, and the implementation of the CBSI to address the security challenges facing the Caribbean.

It should be pointed out too that both sides agreed to adopt “a coordinated approach for engaging development partners in the implementation of social development and crime prevention initiatives” and establish a regional repository of best practices in the areas of crime prevention and social justice to facilitate networking, policy development, and programming.

Additionally the two sides agreed to adopt policy and legislative reforms, “as appropriate, in accordance with national laws to implement information sharing mechanisms on a region-wide basis, including the sharing of radar and sensor data for the purpose of detecting, monitoring, and interdicting illicit activities in the Caribbean; and law enforcement information such as fingerprint and ballistics data in order to strengthen the fight against crime”.

However, while the United States and the Caribbean have already started to make progress in several areas of crime fighting, it is necessary that they continue to work diligently in finding common ground with respect to other burning issues relating to the repatriation of criminal deportees to Caribbean countries.