Guyana to negotiate deportation agreement with US
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — US and Guyanese officials are negotiating an agreement to require the United States to give notice before deporting Guyanese convicts, the government said yesterday.
The agreement, still to be finalised, is also to define which information the United States must provide Guyana’s officials on deportees, including their criminal records, the government said in a statement.
“We are ready to discuss with the US, and that process should begin shortly,” said Elizabeth Harper, foreign ministry director. She did not say when the negotiations would start.
In the last two years up to December 15, the United States has deported more than 500 people back to Guyana after they served time in US prisons, police said. So far this year, 31 Guyanese nationals have been returned.
Guyanese authorities have said they suspect some deportees have returned to lives of crime in Guyana, but that police lack criminal records to help in tracking them down.
The new agreement — to be based on recommendations from Guyana’s Attorney General’s Office and the US State Department — is also needed to prevent mistakes in deportation. In 1999, US authorities accidentally deported a Jamaican national to Guyana.
Yesterday’s announcement came a week after President Bharrat Jagdeo met with US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in Washington, and follows through on a 1997 pledge by former US President Bill Clinton to formalise deportation proceedings with the 15 member countries of the Caribbean Community.
Guyana is also seeking financial assistance to help convicts assimilate in Guyana without taxing the government’s budget, the statement said, but gave no further details.
Parliament last year approved a bill allowing authorities to monitor the activities of returned Guyanese who were involved in more serious crimes while in the United States, including drug trafficking, kidnapping and gang-related violence.
In some cases, deportees are required to report to a local police station once a week.
Guyana, a South American country of about 700,000, has seen its murder rate quadruple to more than 150 last year, as well as a drastic increase in carjackings and robberies.