Stealing seines and engines from fishing vessels is one thing. Slaughtering innocent fishermen is a totally different matter. Although piracy has been a major public safety problem for decades, repeated reports of raids and the recent recovery of the cadavers of Guyanese seamen washed up on the Corentyne and in Suriname have now placed maritime piracy in the same bloody category as out-of-control rural banditry.
The present parlous situation is the result of years of neglect. Official ambivalence on policy and an irresolute law enforcement posture to counter contraband activities along the entire coastland – especially on the Corentyne where the sister maritime crimes of backtracking and smuggling thrive – opened a new frontier for enterprising criminals. Pirates, many of them rogue fishermen familiar with the environment, have been emboldened by the prospect of easy pickings.
For most of this year, the ministries of Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Agriculture and the Office of the President have addressed the problem of maritime piracy with a plethora of vacuous press statements, pointless proposals and numerous committees and meetings. The public was misled into believing that piracy was a foreign problem. In reality, both the Coast Guard and fishermen knew for sure that most attacks have been perpetrated by Guyanese criminals in Guyanese waters.
Month after month, Guyanese citizens continued to be clobbered and killed at sea. How long will it be before the administration acknowledges that its counter-piracy plans are dead in the water? On the one hand, ministers seem strangely disinclined to acquire the maritime, surveillance and aviation assets which they know are necessary. On the other hand, they seem obsessed with the cheap alternative of introducing waterborne community policing groups. But, having failed to stop banditry on land, can community policing groups stop piracy at sea?
Guyana Defence Force chief-of-staff Commodore Gary Best only three months ago on September 24 promulgated ‘Plan A’ to representatives of the Fisheries Department, the Fisheries Advisory Committee and various fishermen’s co-operative societies. The chief-of-staff noted that the piracy problem could not be solved without the assistance of the Coast Guard: “It is the primary duty of the Coast Guard and, if we were failing in the past, we assure you, we will not in the future.”
But the future comes quickly. Under Plan A, the public was assured that the Coast Guard would be “better postured” to act as a deterrent and to provide a rapid response capability to piracy. Minister of Agriculture Mr Robert Persaud spoke of the proposed communication network which would include a global positioning system that would identify the location of vessels in distress. But exactly what was the grand sum of G$15M promised by Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon to implement the new surveillance and interdiction system intended to acquire?
There is no indication that much has happened since September and, if anything, pirates seemed to have been enlivened and encouraged by the abundance of chatter and the absence of enforcement. Their raids intensified, fishermens’ losses increased and the number of killings soared.
Last week, Commodore Best promulgated ‘Plan B.’ Without explaining whether or why Plan A had failed, he acknowledged that the Coast Guard was “cognizant” of the increasing piracy attacks on fishermen. Only now does it seem that a serious decision has been taken by the Ministry of Agriculture to buy several small vessels and marine radio-sets. Why wasn’t this done before?
As it awaits the equipment, the Coast Guard promised to conduct more patrols which, according to Commodore Best, are to “stay close to fishermen
