Pubdate: Sun, 29 Jun 2014
Source: Stabroek News (Guyana)
Copyright: 2014 Stabroek News
Contact:  http://www.stabroeknews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4034
Author: GHK Lall

MORE HOT AIR

Dear Editor,

The President was acting in one of his more playful roles recently. 
It was reported that he seeks to make the country "totally 
inhospitable for drug traffickers. (KN, June 27). Acting aside, he is 
most unconvincing. I do not believe the President; I do not believe 
he has the will or skill to live out to that loud far-reaching 
statement. Quite candidly, this is simply more hot air from a 
president, government, and party that has an inexhaustible supply of such air.

It should be noted that the President was careful, and clever enough, 
to limit himself almost exclusively to drug traffickers. He 
apparently did not have much volume (or verbiage) to share on the 
issue of money launderers, the other half of the diabolical Siamese 
twin of narcotics and dirty money. One has to wonder if the big money 
washers are exempt from this "totally inhospitable" business contemplated.

Now I do believe that there are several reasons for this cunning 
silence. Among them, the economy would unravel, including way less 
gold declarations from pretended operations and results, among other 
sobering realities. And the real hard truth of what this country is 
about will unfold in unambiguous, undeniable terms.

For the reasons shared above, I do not see the President running any 
risk remotely related to any opening of the local Pandora's Box 
involved in his pronouncement; he dares not tamper and risk political 
oblivion. While the President and his people have been very 
successful in making the capital city inhospitable and unlivable for 
residents, I envisage that doing the equivalent for the 
'narcotocracy' will be infinitely more insuperable, even if the 
President was genuine. That is, unless the President and his people 
are thinking of marooning the traffickers in rising floodwaters, and 
then inundating them with an avalanche of garbage, just like happens 
in Georgetown. That just might work to make things "totally inhospitable."

More seriously, the Commander-in-Chief has not been this way before 
on the grave national issues of the times. He is not being so now on 
the national narcotics industry. Further, the President does not need 
anyone  especially me  to familiarize him with the close connectivity 
of drugs and money laundering and the gargantuan national corruption 
octopus. Despite the occasional soothing, sometimes disingenuous, 
public words and postures, the President himself has not disrupted 
the corruption machinery.

Thus, if he does not move against corruption, then it is almost 
guaranteed that words and stances against the other two related areas 
are empty, useless, and lack credibility. The President may not know, 
but trust is earned arithmetically, while distrust grows geometrically.

In the interim, the remaining thoughtful in the nation watch with 
interest the fanfare surrounding the DEA's imminent arrival (some are 
already here under different cover); and the tortured journey of the 
anti-money laundering legislation. Incidentally, no one gives a damn 
and most have already dismissed outright the latest Drug Master Plan 
(what is it now? VII or XII?) in the works, given the credibility of 
its source and the history of the predecessors.

Let me be clear drugs and dirty money and the disciples are here to 
stay. And nobody gun run dem.

Yours faithfully,

GHK Lall
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom