President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday slammed his critics as having ‘expert syndrome’ and law-breaking citizens as suffering from schizophrenia.
Addressing police officers at the opening of their annual conference here in Georgetown, the head of state lamented that Guyanese have been displaying split personalities as they laud the United States and Britain as model countries but say nothing when these nations violate laws and conventions.
The Guyanese leader observed that some citizens wanted clean streets yet they dumped refuse on the roadways; they want a reduction in traffic accidents but did not wear seat belts; they talk about police excesses and torture and complain to the US, which is holding hundreds of people at Guantanamo Bay, the US naval base in Cuba.
“You know what is wrong with us, we suffer from schizophrenia,” Jagdeo declared to a muted audience at the Police Officers’ Mess.
He also lashed out at the Guyana Press Association (GPA), branding the body as biased, because of the position it took regarding the four-month suspension of the CNS Channel Six licence. The President said there had been a lot of talk about his suspension of the station’s licence for re-broadcasting an offensive programme where a woman threatened to kill him if any of her children were hurt in the current crime wave. Jagdeo told the police officers that he did not care about the antics of the station owner Chandra Narine Sharma on his show, but if he broke the law and breached his licence then he would be dealt with.
The GPA had condemned Jagdeo’s decision saying that being the aggrieved party he should not have heard the matter. However, the President had said that he made an attempt to have Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon hear the case, but Sharma secured an injunction from the court preventing anyone other than the minister from handling the matter. Jagdeo said as such he was left with no other choice than to hear the matter himself.
Asked for a reaction to the President’s remarks, GPA President Denis Chabrol said the comments were unfortunate. “The GPA is not in any way biased in its position and we restate that the process which the President used to punish the station was unfair and unethical and breaches the principles of natural justice,” Chabrol declared.
The GPA head said that Jagdeo’s arguments that the court had blocked Luncheon from hearing the case could not stand up to scrutiny, noting that Luncheon was a direct agent, servant and adviser and close confidante of Jagdeo. “Judging from the President’s statements that the GPA is totally biased it clearly shows that while on one hand he boasts about freedom of expression he uses positions taken by organisations to condemn them rather than looking at the substance of the arguments dispassionately,” Chabrol declared.
Jagdeo also lashed out at those media entities that publish gory images of dead people on their front pages. He said in the US the media were not allowed to broadcast images of casualties of the war in Iraq, but in Guyana the press corps would hunt down the most gruesome images and put them on the front page of their newspapers.
Expert syndrome
Taking a swipe at his critics, he said the country was suffering from ‘expert syndrome’. “Everyone is an expert in something in this country and often they do not have a clue, but they will tell you how to do things they themselves will not do,” Jagdeo said in apparent reference to the many criticisms the administration had received over its purchase of the two Bell 206 helicopters.
Turning his attention to security matters, the President told the police officers that he had no doubt about their ability, but while some of them were of good quality there were some in their midst who need not be in the force. Jagdeo acknowledged that crime had taken on a transnational nature and with this change, there has been greater collaboration among countries and organisations. To this end, he dismissed the view that poverty was fuelling the crime being experienced here currently, noting that not every type of crime was linked to poverty. The President pledged to pump the resources needed into the police force to fight crime, but warned the security chiefs that there would be no let up from him regarding their pursuit of the murderous gang that committed the two massacres. “The massacres set us back… I will not let up on you because if you let up the gunmen will repeat their actions, especially if their aim is to drive fear,” Jagdeo declared.
He said the recently-concluded special security summit in Trinidad and Tobago was fruitful in that it paved the way for the introduction of a series of legislation which would give the security forces greater tools to prosecute criminals.
The head of state also spoke again of his administration’s intention to mount some 500 to 1,000 security cameras in public places to help fight crime and the strengthening of the force’s investigative capacity to deal with white collar crimes.
