FORMER Home Affairs Minister Gail Teixeira had expressed concerns about a group of Seventh-day Adventist missionaries operating a medical aviation service here, and had even suspected that they were heavily involved in narco-trafficking, a leaked U.S. cable has revealed.According to former Charge d’Affaires Michael Thomas in a cable headlined, “Still uneasy about American religious groups and airstrips” and dated December 28, 2005, during a meeting with Teixeira five days earlier, she reiterated that she had raised her concerns at a previous meeting about the Seventh-day aviation medical group operating in Guyana.
Teixeira had said at the time, too, that a different group had also wanted to build an airstrip in the hinterland, the Rupununi to be specific. “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 is quoted as saying in the cable, emphasising the PPP government’s desire for fewer rural airstrips, given their perceived link to narco-trafficking, and its policy of destroying some of them.
Teixeira, the cable noted, felt that American religious groups were somehow taking advantage of the Amerindian villages that hosted them. The U.S., however, said that other than referring to reports of drug drops at one location, she shared no evidence of possible sinister activity on the missionaries’ part.
ADVENTIST WORLD AVIATION
The Adventist World Aviation (AWA), according to its website, exists to provide aviation and communications support to those serving the physical, mental, and spiritual needs of the unreached and forgotten peoples of the earth.
The U.S. Center for World Mission estimates that 40% of the world is still considered unreached with the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. Approximately a third of these people live behind geographic barriers that AWA has been called to breach, the mission said on its website.
And while the purpose of the Mission is to own, operate, manage and maintain aircraft to facilitate medical services, community development, spiritual growth and educational activities in remote areas of the world, the purpose of Project Airpower, on the other hand, is dual-faceted.
Based in Guyana, South America, the first objective of Project Airpower is to improve the quality of life for indigenous peoples groups located within Guyana’s jungle interior (Region 1). This is accomplished by providing aviation transportation to facilitate medical services, spiritual growth, education and community development.

MORMON EXPULSION
Back in 2009, the PPP government had expelled several Mormons, something which did not go down well with the U.S. Embassy at the time.
In September 2009, more than 50 missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were ordered expelled, after being held by the police. They were given 30 days to leave.
In an earlier cable leaked by Wikileaks, former U.S. Embassy Charge d’Affaires Karen Williams had felt that the decision by then Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee, was not in keeping with Guyana’s laws.
“Rohee’s decision on numerical limits for missionaries is purely based on what Rohee thinks is proper for Guyana and not based on Guyanese law,” Williams had written in the cable, dated February 16, 2010.
Almost four months after the missionaries were ordered to leave, Minister Rohee told the embassy’s Political Chief that the Ministry of Home Affairs had set numerical limits on the number of foreign missionaries allowed into Guyana.
He would later announce that the ministry had set a numerical limit of 15; that the figure had been negotiated between the Mormons and Government of Guyana; and that being the case, the agreed limit would remain the yardstick for determining how many missionaries were allowed into Guyana.
The only exception to the “numerical limit” rule, however, was Catholics, because, according to Rohee, “They have been in Guyana for so long.”
According to Williams, “Rohee said that he would meet with all missionary groups to discuss their plans and intended numbers, implying that missionary groups that kept their numbers steady would not face problems.”