While controversy still swirls around Camp Ayanganna about the Military Criminal Investigation Department’s role in the ‘roughing up’ of some serving soldiers of the Guyana Defence Force, the public seems to have lost sight of the complete lack of any kind of intelligence in last week’s deadly showdown at Cromarty on the Corentyne Coast.
Press reports so far suggest that the killing of a policeman and three suspected pirates was largely a chance occurrence rather than the outcome of a carefully-planned, intelligence-driven, law-enforcement operation. The public would have expected that military security intelligence units would have been on the case earlier and played a more active role, given the presence of the apparent ringleader, a former military officer, James Gibson.
Not only was Gibson a wanted man but his possession of an AK-47 assault rifle which had been stolen from the defence force in February 2006, and his alleged connection with the criminal enterprise at Christmas Falls and the great Berbice bank robbery of August 2006, suggest that security intelligence units ought to have been keeping a closer watch on him. Although the Coast Guard did respond initially to what was thought to be a routine piracy incident, it did not seem to have sufficient intelligence or assets to trace and arrest the criminals.
In fact, the Gibson gang’s ineptitude with the boat, unfamiliarity with the area, uncoordinated response to the police posse and the acolytes’ amateurish actions indicated that they might not have been hardened high-seas pirates at all. They seemed to be common land-based bandits who were planning another robbery and needed the boats for their getaway. It was a clumsy crime in which the hapless bandits at one stage were sighted paddling a boat after running out of fuel in broad daylight. The neighbourhood was awake and witnessed the show unwinding.
The entire crime unfolded slowly over a period of days since last Wednesday and intelligence units should have been alerted. The bandits had apparently seized two boats in the Atlantic Ocean, stolen the engines leaving the fishermen to drift ashore; attacked another fishing boat at the Rose Hall foreshore taking away the boat and engine and ordering the removal of the seine, suggesting that their interest was only in a boat and engine, and escaped. What was maritime military intelligence organisation doing all this time? What anti-piracy measures were activated?
After seizing the boat, the bandits encountered engine problems and were forced to return to the foreshore where they were greeted by the police party. Having nowhere to hide, they opened fire. One bandit jumped into a trench and the others were seen running along a dam with the police in hot pursuit; they were cornered and killed.
The local police must be commended for their courageous, clever and rapid reaction. It was quite odd, however, for Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud to announce “success” on behalf of the fisheries sector and to attempt to claim credit by conveying the inaccurate impression that the accidental operation will “further enhance the anti-piracy programme currently being pursued to curb the raging levels of crimes committed on our hardworking fisherfolks at high seas.” What programme?
Intelligence matters. The fact is that two years ago, Mr Persaud had promised to establish a communication network with a global positioning system to locate vessels in distress. If, indeed, the equipment was acquired and the maritime communication and information systems were functioning, Mr Gibson might have been alive today and telling those innovative interrogators of the defence force’s intelligence department how he came to have one of their rifles in his possession.
