Suriname authorities believe that some Guyanese living in the Dutch-speaking country are intermediaries for drugs and arms traffickers in the two countries, a source at a news agency in Paramaribo said.
According to the source the authorities have said there was a thriving business among criminals in the two countries, with Guyanese trading drugs for guns with their Suriname counterparts.
A Dutch national, who allegedly had close contacts with several Guyanese, was arrested last week Thursday in Suriname with eight high-powered M-16 military assault weapons, a Caribbean Net News report said last week. According to the report, the man was arrested during a sting operation by that country’s Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team and it is alleged that he and the Guyanese were about to close an arms deal.
Speaking to Stabroek News on Friday the source said several Guyanese living in Suriname were involved in criminal activities and were more than likely the intermediaries for drugs and arms traffickers in the two countries.
“They are middlemen – the buyers,” the source, who asked not to be named, said.
Stabroek News was told that for years the Suriname authorities have been looking closely at the criminal links between their countrymen and Guyanese, with a view to dismantling whatever criminal network might be operating. When drug-indicted businessman Roger Khan and his bodyguards were nabbed there last year Suriname Justice Minister Chandrikapersad Santokhi had said that they were part of a criminal organisation with links to Surinamese.
Security officials in Guyana believe that because the two countries share a common border criminals have easy access to both territories. Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee had admitted in the past that there was some amount of arms and drugs trafficking through Guyana’s porous borders.
The trade in arms for drugs between criminals in Suriname, Brazil and Guyana is said to be a flourishing business, and this year’s US drug report mentioned that the trade in drugs for weapons by Guyanese was thriving. Security experts believe that criminals in Guyana, including drug cartels and bandits, have links to other jurisdictions, especially border countries.
Over the years, there have not been many interceptions of guns coming through Guyana’s main entry port, the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, reinforcing the impression that a number of illegal guns on the streets are entering through the land borders. Earlier this year the Home Affairs Ministry set up an inter-agency task force to look at arms smuggling. It is not clear what work has been done by the body so far, as the streets are still awash with illegal weapons, and save for intercepting a few citizens here and there with small arms the police have had little success in interrupting the flow of arms into the country.
In the Caribbean Net News report, it was also noted that authorities in Suriname said they had arrested a member of the Colombian rebel organisation FARC, who was conspiring with other individuals to commit crimes in Suriname. The detainee, only identified as Jose R was subsequently deported and turned over to judicial officials from Colombia. At a press conference last Wednesday in Suriname Santokhi told reporters that Jose R had been arrested for immigration violations. He had allegedly entered Suriname illegally and was posing a threat to national security with his intended activities, the report said. The minister said the police and several law enforcement agencies were continuing their investigations into alleged subversive activities against the government.
Last Tuesday the minister had announced that this week special units would launch an operation to prevent attacks on the government and detain major criminals. He was of the opinion that international criminal organisations such as the Colombian FARC rebel movement were behind the attacks, while the criminal underworld from Africa was also involved in planning attacks in Suriname, the report said. Though he did not give details, he claimed that the groups were aiming at the destabilisation of the country and possibly assisting former dictator Desi Bouterse to overthrow the present administration.
Bouterse is accused with twenty-four others of the killing of 15 critics of his then military regime in December 1982 and faces a lengthy jail term if convicted. The hearings in the case in a military court opened a week last Friday, although Bouterse did not appear.
