Former US Army general encourages Fidel Castro to release political prisoners

HAVANA (AP) — Retired US Army Gen Barry McCaffrey said yesterday he talked for 12 hours with Fidel Castro and urged the release of 250 Cuban political prisoners in order to encourage dialogue with the United States.

McCaffrey — now a university professor visiting the island with the Centre for Defence Information — told a news conference that Cuba did not present a military risk to the United States.

“They represent zero threat to the United States,” he said.

The general said he told Cuban authorities on Saturday that the United States also did not present a military risk to the island, and said he supported increased co-operation between the United States and Cuba in the areas of drug interdiction and fighting terrorism.

Guyana cops after ‘new, flashy rich’

GEORGETOWN — The Minister of Home Affairs in Guyana, Ronald Gajraj, has disclosed a new campaign by the police to go after the so-called “new, flashy rich” who are not known to have permanent jobs but have acquired “big mansions and drive expensive cars”.

The minister said that the intensified anti-crime campaign to go after this “new group” of criminals, was being pursued to bring to justice the suspected big dealers in narco-trafficking and the illegal gun trade, a phenomenon described by him as the “Siamese twins”.

Speaking at a high-level gathering, involving diplomats, business executive and security officials at the Foreign Service Institute in Georgetown when he launched the International Narcotics Control Board’s annual report for 2001, Gajraj said of the “new rich group of people”:

“These are persons who have no visible or lawful source of income, but whose lifestyle is lavish, marked by an abundance of jewellery, drive expensive vehicles, lead affluent lifestyles, build and live in mansions and their presence in society has contributed to the conjuring up of false values by our young people that there is a virtue in not working but yet acquiring wealth rapidly….”

The minister disclosed that the Guyana Central Bank has been designated as the competent authority to which reports may be legally made to suspected instances of money laundering by some of these suspected “flashy rich and others”, and from whom requests could be made to foreign authorities in “tracing, seizing and even confiscating assets once established they are proceeds from crime”.

The British High Commissioner to Guyana, Edward Glover, told the audience that experiences regionally and internationally have shown that there could be “no quick-fix solutions” to the scourge of narco-trafficking and the related problems of money laundering and gun-running.

He, however, commended the initiatives of the Guyana government in the overall anti-crime battle and noted that generally Caribbean govenments were making a concerted effort in the war against narco-trafficking.

T&T, Venezuela in high seas crime fight

PORT-OF-SPAIN — Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago are joining forces to combat crime on the high seas within their jurisdiction as an extension of their respective onshore national anti-crime strategies.

Venezuela’s ambassdor to Port-of-Spain, Hector Azocar, has disclosed that the cooperation between the two countries would be based on the activation of a bi-lateral ‘Frontiers Commission” in June this year.

Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela have frequently clashed over fishing rights with the former accusing the later of harassment of its fisherfolk, quite a few of them ending up in Venezuelan jails and having to pay large sums of money or had their boats and fishing equipment confiscated.

But in addition to seeking to address this recurring problem through a new one-year agreement that succeeds that which expired in December last year, both countries will be putting a new emphasis on narco-trafficking and other criminal activities on the high seas.

Manning told to pay his debt

PORT-OF-SPAIN — Prime Minister Patrick Manning is being urged by former Attorney General Kamla Persad-Bissessar, to pay up his TT$1.2 million (TT$6=US$1) debt owed to the state now that he is in a hurry, she said, to collect increased salary and backpay from the national treasury.

The money has been owing to the state for some four years now after Manning, leader of the People’s National Movement (PNM) lost a constitutional motion brought against two of his party’s MPs, Vincent Lasse and Rupert Griffth after they defected to then government of ex-Prime Minister Basdeo Panday following the 1995 general election.

Now, following last week’s cabinet decision, as announced by Manning, for hefty pay hikes for all ministers, parliamentarians and local government representatives based on a 1998 report from the Salaries Review Commission, the ex-UNC AG feels that the PNM leader should consider giving priroity also to start paying his debt to the state.

Using language similar to that of President ANR Robinson when he appointed Manning as new Prime Minister last Christmas eve with a focus on morality and spirituality, the UNC’s Persad-Bissessar asked whether “it is moral and spiritual for him (Manning) to hold one of the highest offices in the land while owing money to the very state”

Or, she further asked in a report in yesterday’s “Express”, if Manning was planning to instruct his Attorney General, Glenda Morean, to grant a waiver of the debt.

Manning himself has stated that the government has not yet addressed he issue of his debt payment to the state.

Bajan top cop’s ‘No’ to ganja

BRIDGETOWN — The Police Commissioner of Barbados, Grantley Watson, has given a firm “no” to calls to decriminalise use of ganja, saying that he does not buy into the rationalisations being offered by advocates that it no longer be treated an illegal substance for private consumption.

Watson said he was aware of the increasing calls, from various quarters in Barbados and other jurisdictions in the Caribbean, including Jamaica, for legalising ganja for private use, and particularly because of its claimed “medicinal value”.

He said the jury was still out on the claimed medicinal value and he was opposed to decriminalising on the assumption that there would be a reduction in its current widesread use.

The top cop said that any move in the direction of legalising ganja would be “a step in the wrong direction” and warned against what he called a “jam-busted” response under decriminalisation pressures from sections of the society.