Georgetown : Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee recently said Guyana’s perspective on the Trafficking In Persons (TIP) report by the US State Department which placed Guyana and several other Caribbean countries on the tier two watch list, reiterated that the TIP Task Force is convinced that the report was a complete misrepresentation of the Guyana situation.
The Minister, speaking on a programme on the National Communications Network, explained that Guyana’s response took some time because the TIP Task Force dissected the report so as to make a comprehensive response which required a complete analysis. Having done that, the Task Force was convinced that the report was a complete twisting of the true situation.
“The report was totally rejected, and in fact we took into consideration Cabinet’s position on the matter because Cabinet was discussing the matter while we were discussing the matter on the task force,” Minister Rohee said.
He added that President Donald Ramotar had also made reference to the TIP report at an Investment Conference held at the Guyana International Conference Centre in late June. “So we took guidance from President Ramotar’s statement, Cabinet and that helped to influence what we formulated as a response to the US State Department,” the Minister explained.
At the end of the report, the Task Force stated that it would no longer be cooperating with the US Embassy here in Guyana with respect to TIP. The basis for that is that “we have been faithfully, and in a very dedicated and committed manner, fulfilling all that we know to be our obligations…concurrently whenever the US Embassy circulates a questionnaire to the Government in order for us to complete on issues which they would have an interest in, we would do so, and when we send it back and the reports are published there is very little reference to the government’s position,” Minister Rohee posited.
“We don’t expect them to be lovey-dovey with us in relation to Guyana’s position of TIP, but the least we could ask is for them to reflect as faithfully as possible without any editorialising, without any interpretations given to the factual responses that we gave in the questionnaires they circulated on an annual basis,” he pointed out.
With regards to Guyana’s new TIP rating and its international image, Minister Rohee recognised that this would depend on who is making it a big issue.
“When we look at the transnational organised crimes, drug trafficking, we and the international community basically agree that Guyana is a trans-shipment point for drugs…in this country there are no drug labs, none have been discovered the only thing that we find here is the cultivation of marijuana,” he illustrated. In acknowledgement of this, the government has formulated policies and a National Drug Strategy Master Plan to address the drug problem from that perspective.
With respect to fire arms being smuggled into the country there are also programmes and policies to address that as well.
“Guyana is not known as a drug empire… so if we are working to address those under controllable circumstances it seems to me that the same applies for the TIP,” Minister Rohee illustrated.
He emphasised that Guyana has to maintain its national position which is not an artificial/cover-up position or one where evidence is being stifled. “Our national position which is based on information collected by government agencies and departments is that TIP is no worse than smuggling of fire arms and drugs in and out of Guyana… in fact it seems to us based on the intelligence that we receive that it is not as worse as those two other issues,” the Minister pointed out.
