Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has lauded the efforts of recently joint services inter-agency collaboration which has been yielding results, such as the recent large find of arms and ammunition in Kitty Georgetown, but the administration is becoming increasingly concerned over the lack of support from external partners such as the US administration, since most of the illegal weapons being seized locally can be traced back the the United States of America.
He was at the time addressing members of the domestic media corps and lamented, “we do alot of work assisting and collaborating with the US to tackle the transnational threat of drugs doing into their territory but we don’t See the same level of effort o the part of the US assisting us with gun smuggled into our territory.”
Adamant “alot of the weapons come in from the USA, they come in from barrels and all sorts of things.”
Speaking to the collaboration with domestic inter-agency partners the Vice President noted that “we still need to get more support from our external partners, the president himself has expressed concern to some of the international partners, particularly the US that we need greater assistance in stopping the flow of weapons, coming into our region from this country and other countries.” He nonetheless expressed satisfaction at the more serious efforts tackling the security environment in the country, and “the fact that you are seeing more visible expressions of the successes of the police force and by extension the joint services, is because of the hard work of many people in these agencies.”
According to the Vice President, “the inter agency collaboration that is taking place between all the agencies that deal with security and fighting crime and transnational crime in Guyana, and so they have strengthened their intelligence; you have targeted operations and you are seeing success from this the fact that you see alot of seizure of weapons here is because of that.”
Some collaboration with our partners but also we still need to get more support from our external partners, the president himself has expressed concern to some of the international partners, particularly the US that we need greater assistance in stopping the flow of weapons, coming into our region from this country and other countries
With this in mind the Vice President reminded “this is not a new position, it has been expressed overwhelmingly by CARICOM even when they met with the highest levels in the US govt.”
He continued saying “ these positions have been expressed recently and as far back as when I was president I remember meeting in Trinidad and Tobago with President (Barrack) Obama, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, I spoke on this matter and “ raised this concern that the relationship has to be symmetrical.”
He further argued that “we need that assistance and collaborating in this area too but you have seen more and more done in this area and it will continue.”
