Guyana to benefit from US funding to curb illegal arms trade

Guyana is expected to receive funding from the United States Government to implement a national action plan aimed at curbing the trade of illegal firearms.
This has been revealed by Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, who is currently on a four-day visit to Guyana to forge discussions with local partners on issues of multilateral cooperation, including regional security.
On Thursday, she met with Prime Ministry Brigadier (ret’d) Mark Phillips; Chief of Defence Staff of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), Brigadier Omar Khan; and Defence Advisor Gerry Gouveia. According to Ambassador Jenkins, during her engagement with these Guyanese officials, she reiterated the US’ commitment to working with Guyana to reduce violence and decrease the illegal trafficking of arms, both here and in the region under the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI).
She disclosed that as part of these collaborations with the Caribbean Community (Caricom), the US is providing funding to countries who are developing a national action plan to tackle the trade in illegal arms.

“There are a number of countries in the Caribbean that are developing these national action plans to address issues of small arms, and the US (is) seeing how we can provide funding to those countries who have developed these national action plans,” she stated.
Jenkins has said that Guyana would also benefit from this financial assistance.
“My understanding is Guyana is one of the countries that [are developing] the action plan. So, based on what those plans are, we can provide funding to countries to actually implement those plans,” Ambassador Jenkins has explained.
According to the US official, while this assistance would mainly be financial, the US already has ongoing cooperation with the Guyana Government on various levels within the local security sector, including in capacity-building.
Jenkins noted that this funding to Guyana and other Caribbean nations is just one of the measures taken by the US to clamp down on illegal firearms trade in the region.
In Guyana, local law enforcement has reported that most of the illegal weapons found in Guyana come from the US – something which the Under Secretary says is recognised and is being addressed by the authorities.
“We have the export ban [in the US]. We’re trying to do what we can on the US side to try to reduce the export of illegal arms. So, we have put the ban on that right now as we tried to figure out the best way forward to help ensure that these small arms do not get in the hands of non-state actors or others who should not be having possession of those types of weapons. So, that’s something we’ve already done, and we will continue to work with Guyana and other countries in the region on that,” Ambassador Jenkins has said.
At a Guyana Police Force press conference last November, Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum had reported that most of the illegal weapons found on the local streets originated from the US. In fact, it was revealed that 29, or 22.7 per cent, of the 128 guns seized across the country up to that period in 2023, were from the US.
Another 26, or 20.30 per cent of those seized firearms were from neighbouring Brazil, while the origin of some 24 seized firearms, or 18.8 per cent, is unknown and the others emanate from mostly European countries such as Austria, Italy, Russia, Belgium, and Germany.
According to Blanhum, this information was obtained as a result of the Police Force now having access to the database of the US-based Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms (ATF), which allows them to conduct traces of illegal firearms.
Under this new partnership with the Bureau, the Crime Chief had noted, several local investigators also received training from an ATF expert and the recently established CARICOM Gun Intelligence Unit on firearms-related matters.
As part of efforts to counter firearms trafficking in the region, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) was signed into US law in July 2022, increasing criminal penalties for straw purchasers and US-sourced firearms trafficking.
Moreover, a partnership between the Caricom Crime Gun Intelligence Unit (CGIU) and the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations has been crafted for an interagency, multijurisdictional surge operation – Operation Hammerhead – to target illicit firearms being trafficked from the United States to the Caribbean. Through collaboration with Caribbean partners, Operation Hammerhead has to date resulted in seizures of 339 firearms, 26,495 rounds of ammunition, and over 400 magazines, according to the US State Department. (G-8)