June 10, 2007, Guyana Chronicle, Editorial Viewpoint, U.S. 'Cooperation'--What Of This Visa?, by Rickey Singh,

June 10, 2007, Guyana Chronicle, Editorial Viewpoint, U.S. 'Cooperation'--What Of This Visa?, by Rickey Singh, 

United States ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, Roy Austin, last week gave an assurance to Prime Minister Patrick Manning that could easily be offered also by his counterparts in Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica and other CARICOM states.

That assurance, as stated by Ambassador Austin during discussions pertaining to the alleged terrorist conspiracy involving four CARICOM nationals, is that the twin-island republic was NOT viewed as "a hotbed for terrorism".

The envoy's pronouncement, welcome at these challenging times, simply reflects a mature understanding of current realities in CARICOM as an integrated community of sovereign states.

For all the misrepresentations and misunderstandings that often emerge in Washington--CARICOM relations, the consensus, across our region, would be that it is in the interest of our Community to strengthen and maintain the best possible relations with the USA.

Not on any ad hoc or expedient basis, whether on crime and security challenges to combat narco-trafficking, its related evils of gun-running, money laundering and corruption. Rather in pursuing cooperation along clearly defined parameters in the wider context of socio-economic development.

The recent joint United Nations/World Bank report on the negative impact of serious crimes on economic development in the Caribbean should serve as the latest reminder for a new, enlightened approach in pursuing national/regional security objectives within the broad framework of economic development linked to trade, investment and foreign policy goals.

In considering new initiatives, the US decision-makers may be advised to reconsider current attitudes routinely adopted in annual "country reports" relating to real and perceived problems of the illegal drugs trade, trafficking in persons; gun-running and human rights violations, as well as new concerns about potential terrorist threats.

Although US authorities would not admit to it, too often the pattern reflected in these annual assessment reports has been one of unmistakeable bias, arrogance and quite judgemental with yawning gaps when it comes to substantiated data.

At the same time, these reports continue to conceal failures by US authorities to honestly engage in information-sharing in support of what's often dogmatically offered as "facts" or "evidence"--even when requested to do so. Guyana, for one, has been so affected among CARICOM states. 

Not surprisingly, therefore, public statements, by both US and CARICOM authorities about confidence-building measures to strengthen cooperation links often evoke cynicism..

In this context, one glaring example as it relates to "mutual cooperation" is the continuing failure by the US to come to terms with resolving an issue of national importance--the sudden withdrawal last year, on the eve of his appointment as acting Police Commissioner, of the diplomatic visa of Mr Henry Greene.

If, while Winston Felix was Police Commissioner, the earlier withdrawal of Greene's diplomatic visa could somehow have been rationalised, there remains something fundamentally flawed in leaving unresolved--almost a year now--this very sensitive issue of revocation of the visitor's visa of the top security officer in a country of no shortages in political mischief and vicious rumours.

How much longer, therefore, will it take the relevant US decision-makers in Washington and Georgetown, to permit this undesirable state of affairs, even as both the George Bush and Bharrat Jagdeo administrations keep up the rhetoric about their "cooperation" in confidence-building measures for mutual security benefits? 

A requested intransit US visa recently granted to Commissioner Greene for a trip to The Bahamas, via Miami, on official business, should influence the process for renewal of his eligibility of a regular visitor's visa. 

The US should know that in holding the head of the Guyana Police Force virtually to ransom---for so it seems--over a regular visitor's visa cannot be helpful in fostering the quality of mutual cooperation required in the fight against criminals and terrorists.

In the absence of any known substantial reason to the contrary, it is, therefore, time for a reversal--in the interest of the Guyana Police Force and dignified US-Guyana relations.