Be patient with me as I avoid “the larger picture”. You know – about National Security Plans, Stakeholder Consultations, Overseas Assistance, Root Causes.
I do not and cannot cast aside the wisdom or necessity of such strategies. A comprehensive national security strategy fashioned by a consensus of national (knowledgeable) representatives of us all is bound to redound to our (national) long-term benefit (I suppose). Later paragraphs on I’ll quote the repetitive advice on this issues and ask simple (perhaps admittedly simplistic) questions relevant to that advice, even admonitions.
However, in response to the second massacre at Bartica (at all the spots I visited just eight days before the slaughter for a happy Mashramani event), I’ll merely repeat my views, my simple layman’s practical appeals which ought to assist, nay, improve, laymen’s security. I mean, until all the Master Plans – with their stake-holder consensus, probable international assistance and the mobilization of all our local security experts, brains and technology – I repeat one appeal that is bound to improve community security.
Fully accepting the fact that no President, no political party, no Police Commissioner or force, no army or security service, must less the much-touted community policing groups(s), can ever hope to match the well-planned, sudden surprise attack of many AK-47’s, I say that we, as law-abiding citizens, deserve certain basic, minimum standards and services at our police stations. Beginning yesterday, the government must provide the wherewithal to make this possible. (Even as we debate the conventional wisdom that dictates that “security is everybody’s business.”)
And by now it should be a given: the murderous marauders are well-trained and organized; they have obviously benefited early on, from military or Para-military “advice”; they are privy to logistical support – safe-havens, receivers, female expertise, transportation, reconnaissance and insider assistance – from associates, whether seniors or peers.
Whatever the objective(s) of these domestic terrorists, therefore, our communities must be assured of the minimum official services and protection – if not maximum security.
Every little station
Hopefully, young men and women would still feel some commitment to joining the Police Force. Hopefully, the 2008 budget or an announcement afterwards will indicate higher salaries for law-enforcement personnel. The teachers heard such a pledge recently.
And until our plans provide for National Militias or guardsmen who can be trusted not to collaborate with bandits, we have to depend on the honest policemen amongst us. But what do they deserve during their work-day.
Simply, but significantly every little police-station or outpost should have the capacity either to respond rapidly or cause responses to desperate situations and appeals. No little station at Sophia, Bartica, Vigilance Alness, Orealla, Wismar, Sisters, Dem Amstel or Johanna Cecila should be expected to have AK 47’s such as the marauding murders move with or have access to on location. Therefore each Police location should have one or two vehicles, security cameras, telephones of all types and appropriate radio’s special lines to other security agencies -and a few special allies in each community.
Too much to ask? Not in this day and age! Not in the light of wanton attacks by savvy criminals who strike at will because they know what police can do and cannot now hope to do. So barring insider-collaborators, let us provide for the good cops left at these locations. Give the stations lights and lamps, generators, bullet proof protection and secure perimeter fences.
Frankly Speaking, I know that much of the above is obvious and reads a little redundant. But, my fellow sitting-ducks Guyanese, the truth is that our little police stations across the length and breadth of our coastlands and elsewhere do not “enjoy” these life-protecting security basics. Along with the long-term plans, let the aid and assistance provide the basics now!
After the consultations
