By GHK Lall- Bolivians carried a goodly fraction of those exposed and tarnished by U.S. visa revocations. Columbians, Ecuadorians, Peruvians all suffered the same fate. Judges. Prosecutors. A Police official. An attorney general. The allegations: corruption and involvement in the drug trafficking trade. All of them now have that 21st century mark of Cain branded across their foreheads. Visa cancelled. They stand as surefire cases of lepers to be shunned and blocked from interacting with regular folks.
U.S. visa yanked. It’s heartening to see the world’s policeman and prosecutor, the U.S., cleaning house. The U.S. must not be squeamish in its efforts to right wrongs. No selective seeing, no cherry-picking, please. Remember! True justice is blind. There are no special friends that are so exceptional as to be spared; the beneficiaries of a State Department wink and chuckle. Boys will be boys. Girls, too. My thanks in advance to the U.S. Ambassador to Guyana, Excellency Nicole D. Theriot, for assistance in including this call, this counsel, in official dispatches.
When is the U.S. sweep through Latin America for money launderers, drug trade colluders, and corrupters going to reach South America? There is Guyana. A truckload of government officials involved in a litany of corrupt practices. And, let’s face it: the Guyana drug traffic business-transshipment, facilitation, coverup-cannot survive without top-of-the-line government involvement. Pick a name. Bring out the visa revocation stamp. Have a prison uniform ready.
If there is no confidence to face the toothless, and previously useless, parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, then that gives an indication of how much the government and its people have on their heads. What they have done with hands. And how much they have to hide. If the promised anticorruption czar cannot be appointed over a year later, then there is that stable of corruption that will not be cleaned up. Assuming, of course, that the anticorruption creature is a real person.
Meaning, an honest one that is untouchable, and is fearful of no one. Not even a soggy emperor, clothes or no clothes. How to deal with corruption, if the major corrupters are many pay grades higher than the one identified to bring them to book? American presences in Guyana know all of this. Oil interests know this. Diplomatic presences know more than any Guyanese. The State Dept cannot be Justice John Marshall Harlan (the great dissenter), on the one hand; and Justice Clarence Thomas (the great condoner), on the other. I change tack.
A short while back, Guyanese officials were the most favored with a special welcome by U.S. law enforcement personnel at U.S. points of entry. No handcuffs or an ICE agent in the vicinity with a submachine gun at the ready. Just a quiet, private, chat. Now the official travelers out of Guyanese are all purer than fresh caught fish, but no less pungent on the senses.
One can pick them up in the middle of a tornado at its peak (or blindfolded from any point of a Police criminal lineup). These guys and gals from Guyana carry more baggage than an army of Red Caps can handle. Evidence? Start with real estate. Want more? Revisit those old Facebook happy hours when the rum flowed, the powder ran across the borders, and millions were so much that banks couldn’t handle them. So, the recipients just rolled in them. And rolled around with the generous. Not my words, but those of others.
I want to know why the U.S. State Department, with Secretary Marco Rubio in charge, is so slow, so skittish, to get to Guyana. Is it because of the kid gloves treatment of American commerce, with Exxon’s standing most prominent? The exchange that is part of a quid pro quo. Give Exxon a free pass, and State gives Guyana’s brigade of corrupt officials a free get out of jail ticket. The symmetry is a rewarding two-way street. The U.S. State Dept is either an unbiased and unfettered judge of corruption, or I judge it an inseparable part of Guyana’s official corruption class. Include that in the cable, please.
