This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 GEORGETOWN 001349 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD 
STATE ALSO FOR INL/HSTC 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/28/2015 
TAGS: PGOV PREL SNAR SMIG KFRD KCOR KCRM GY
SUBJECT: TEIXEIRA STRUGGLING TO CONTROL HOME AFFAIRS 
MINISTRY 
 
REF: GEORGETOWN 1269 
 
Classified By: Charge d,Affaires Michael D. Thomas for reason 1.4(b) an 
d (d) 
 
¶1. (U) SUMMARY. Charge, Deputy Consul, and PolOff met with 
Minister of Home Affairs Gail Teixeira on December 23. 
Teixeira had requested a Consular briefing on trends in fake 
Guyanese civil documents detected by the Consular Section. 
Teixeira also described problems with control of the visa 
process in Guyana's foreign missions, including those in 
India, China, Israel, and Africa.  Teixeira also discussed 
voter registration problems that continue to dog the Ministry 
of Home Affairs (MHA) (septel).  END SUMMARY. 
 
No Control Over Birth, Marriage Registrations 
--------------------------------------------- 
¶2. (C) Charge, Deputy Consul, and PolOff met with Minister 
Teixeira at the MHA on December 23.  Teixeira had asked 
Ambassador last month to send a Consular Officer to brief her 
on fraudulent birth and marriage certificates issued by the 
General Register Office (GRO) that had been detected by the 
Consular Section.  Teixeira was particularly worried that she 
is not getting full and accurate details on these incidents 
in the briefings GRO gives her.  Deputy Consul described the 
problematic birth and marriage certificates submitted to the 
Consular Section in Immigrant Visa cases, which appear to 
have been genuinely issued using GRO paper and seals, but 
which were not obtained in accordance with Guyanese law.  The 
clear implication is that GRO is issuing civil documents 
improperly. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Birth certificates.  In a common example, someone 
whose original birth certificate does not list a father is 
able to obtain a new certificate from GRO that includes the 
purported father's name.  Teixeira confirmed this was not 
legal without the father at least going to court and 
accepting paternity. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Marriages.  Guyanese marriage certificates state 
whether the marriage is by license, by notice, or by banns. 
The latter two methods require both the bride and groom to be 
in Guyana for weeks before the marriage.  In Guyana's 
widespread business marriages, the Guyanese-American 
petitioner will usually remain in the country less than a 
week and use an unscrupulous marriage officer to wed them and 
obtain a certificate.  Texeira confirmed these quick visit 
marriages are invalid if done by notice or banns. 
 
¶5. (C) Minister Teixeira expressed what seemed to be genuine 
displeasure with these improperly or unlawfully issued civil 
documents involving GRO.  She explained how she is already 
trying to fix the problem.  She has confronted GRO about 
similar incidents but to date GRO has denied responsibility 
for the fraudulent documents.  However, the evidence is too 
convincing now -- the paper stock, seal, and signatures of 
these certificates are all genuine.  Regarding marriages, 
Teixeira has revoked the license of one marriage officer and 
is scrutinizing the entire marriage license process.  She has 
also required the GRO to implement basic management controls 
over controlled items, such as locking up the seal when not 
in use and inventorying and securing supplies of blank 
certificates.  She also asked Deputy Consul to keep her 
apprised on a monthly basis of problems encountered with GRO 
issued documents. 
 
Trying to Control Who Comes In and Who Stays Out 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
¶6. (C) Teixeira mentioned several suspicious visa cases on 
her plate.  She said this flow of people wanting to enter 
Guyana on unlikely pretenses could relate to trafficking in 
persons, the gold and diamond industries, arms smuggling, or 
terrorist links.  She said she would like to work with USG to 
prevent these activities.  She takes some files immediately 
to the Guyana Police Force's Special Branch for them to check 
Interpol databases or any other sources, since the Ministry 
has no computer resources to conduct such checks. 
¶7. (C) Following up on the November 17 meeting's discussion 
of Indian tour operators (reftel), Teixeira said she is 
taking a hard line with tour operators applying for visas for 
large groups of young, single, businessmen purportedly 
traveling to Guyana for tourism.  Almost every set of 
applicants included an older man with an Indian passport 
issued at a location outside of India (such as Beirut or 
Frankfurt).  Teixeira has compiled a case file with passport 
numbers for each of these tour group applicants.  In early 
December, a new tour operator appeared requesting visas for 
another group of "tourists".  Teixeira forwarded the 
operator's supposed e-mail address to the Indian High 
Commission, which determined the address was fictitious. 
 
¶8. (C) Teixeira described a court case involving a group of 
Indians waylaid in Guyana before trying to enter the U.S. or 
Canada illegally.  In what she said is a typical scam, their 
families probably paid human smugglers to take them to 
"America".  After bringing the group to Guyana (in the 
"Americas") the smugglers then demand additional payments for 
onward transport to the U.S. or Canada.  In the case at hand, 
one man escaped and went to the Indian High Commission. 
Three Indians are now in protective custody as witnesses but 
the authorities will not be able to keep them much longer. 
Teixeira does not know how these three entered Guyana.  She 
admitted she is unsure what she is dealing with but this case 
is just the "tip of the iceberg". 
 
¶9. (S) Teixeira described the steps she has taken to curtail 
irresponsible, or corrupt, consular operations at Guyana's 
diplomatic posts.  She said she encountered "great resistance 
in foreign missions trying to tighten up on visa issuances" 
and lamented that the MFA and other ministries do not 
understand that visa officers overseas are an important part 
of the country's security apparatus.  All diplomatic missions 
are supposed to send visa issuance reports to the MHA, but 
the Ministry receives them six weeks after the fact when the 
travelers have already either transited Guyana or have 
arrived and disappeared. 
 
-- Teixeira said she has managed to bring Beijing visa 
operations under control.  Guyana has ceased issuing visas 
for Chinese to join their families in Guyana, although 
Chinese are still granted visas to work in the timber and 
sugar industries  (Note: China is financing a US$100 million 
restructuring of Guyana's sugar industry.  End note.)  She 
said that a corrupt system operated in China involving the 
mission and the Ministry.  Now, the mission in Beijing can 
only deal with bilateral cooperation and investment issues. 
 
-- In response to Charge's question, Teixeira said the visa 
situation in India is "manageable".  All visa applications 
from South India come to the MHA in Georgetown for 
adjudication, allowing for greater scrutiny.  She believes 
South Indians who want a Guyanese visa would not travel all 
the way to New Delhi to apply in person at the High 
Commission there.  In response to Charge's direct question 
about visa operations at Guyana's Embassy in New Delhi, 
Teixeira said "Delhi doesn't deal with us".  When the 
conversation turned to Delhi, the normally animated Teixeira 
slowed down and spoke carefully and deliberately.  She was 
noticeably less forthcoming about the situation in Delhi than 
about any other topic during the two and a half hour meeting. 
 However, she did suggest twice that her relationship with 
the Delhi Embassy was dictated by orders from higher 
authority.  (Note: Teixeira's predecessor as Minister of Home 
Affairs, Ronald Gajraj, was implicated in death squad 
activity and was forced to resign under pressure from the US 
and other donors after he admitted to consorting with and 
illegally granting gun licenses to known murders.  Gajraj has 
now taken up appointment in New Delhi as Guyana's High 
Commissioner to India.  End note.) 
 
-- Texeira said Guyana's embassy in Suriname and Guyana's 
honorary consuls (particularly in Africa and Israel) are now 
her biggest problems on the visa front. 
 
¶10. (S) In Teixeira's words, Guyana does not have an 
immigration policy.  There is little control over visa 
issuance.  Immigration authorities cannot control or keep 
track of who enters the country.  The government loses 
immigration cases in court.  Deportation is expensive and 
often ineffective.  In the past, all immigration decisions 
contained a note that refused applicants could appeal 
directly to the Minister, a practice Teixeira said she had 
abolished.  Teixeira said disorder in the immigration process 
is embarrassing to the government and the GoG wants to do 
something about it.  But President Jagdeo is also concerned 
about profiling travelers by race or nationality -- an image 
he does not want to project. 
 
Corruption Interferes Constantly 
-------------------------------- 
¶11. (S) During the meeting, Teixeira acknowledged there "was 
quite a lot of corruption in the immigration division".  She 
has tried to deal with it by firing many employees in the 
Ministry.  However, she fears that these corrupt former 
employees will sell their knowledge of the system and ability 
to forge documents.  For example, she said the former MHA 
Security Policy Coordinator, Sultan Kassim, is "very closely 
linked to a number of networks, particularly the Chinese" and 
described a slush fund financed by Brazilian fees for work 
permits that Gajraj and Kassim had run.  Unable to pin any 
direct evidence of illegal activity on Kassim, Teixeira said 
she had dealt with him by sending him on long-term leave. 
 
¶12. (S) Teixeira stated that while corruption also existed in 
the police force and GRO, the corruption of justices and 
magistrates was the most worrying.  She said all Guyanese 
know which cases, magistrates, and lawyers are tainted by 
corruption.  As a result, the government cannot win important 
convictions.  Similarly, she said everyone knows who the 
"drug lawyers" are, but the local bar association is too 
feeble to disbar anyone. 
 
Still Uneasy about American Religious Groups and Airstrips 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
¶13. (C) Teixeira reiterated the concern she raised at the 
previous meeting about the Seventh Day Aviation medical group 
operating in Guyana.  She said a different group now wants to 
build an airstrip in the Rupununi hinterland.  This group has 
suddenly expanded from one priest with an aircraft in the 
late 1990s to a group of around 20 missionaries whose 
projects always involve airstrips.    Teixeira emphasized the 
government's desire for fewer rural airstrips, given their 
link to narco-trafficking, and its policy of destroying some 
of them.  She thinks these American religious groups are 
somehow taking advantage of the Amerindian villages that host 
them.  However, besides referring to reports of drug drops at 
one location, she shared no evidence of possible sinister 
activity on the missionaries' part. 
 
Request for Assistance 
---------------------- 
¶14. (U) Teixeira made two requests for assistance. 
 
-- First, she would like to computerize the civil document 
process (all birth, marriage, and death certificates are now 
handwritten) and create scanned archival copies of all old 
records.  She said two groups are submitting proposals to do 
this but she does not have the money to implement the 
project.  Teixeira noted that this major project will have to 
wait until after the 2006 elections. 
 
-- Second, Teixeira asked for assistance in auditing the 
GRO's internal control procedures and in training GRO 
personnel to better understand and manage the critical 
security component to their jobs.  She would like such 
training to culminate in new standard operating procedures 
for GRO's activities. 
 
Comment 
------- 
¶15. (C) This meeting further confirmed that Teixeira 
genuinely wants to fight the corruption and inefficiency that 
have a crippling effect on her broad portfolio (including 
GRO, immigration, the attorney general and the courts, and 
the police force).  Long-standing smuggling routes that 
transfer illegal migrants from India, Pakistan, and China 
through Guyana to the U.S. and Canada are ideal for 
exploitation by terrorists and others who would do us harm. 
Thus, it would be strongly in U.S. interest to find ways to 
assist Teixeira in vetting suspect visa applications and 
tightening control of civil documents. 
¶16. (C)  Unfortunately, although Teixeira criticizes her 
predecessor Gajraj's imperious, direct control over the 
Ministry's workings, she has only slightly loosened the reins 
of control herself.  This may reflects her very valid 
concerns over both corruption and competence within the MHA, 
or the PPP's habit of centralized decision-making and 
micro-management.  The fact that she involves herself 
personally in sensitive visa applications supports either 
hypothesis.  Another possibility is that the position has 
overwhelmed her.  Post rates Teixeira highly as an honest, 
forthright interlocutor.  However, more than a few Guyanese 
insiders think of her as a lightweight better suited to her 
previous position as Minister of Youth, Culture, and Sport. 
END COMMENT. 
THOMAS