The diabolical attempt on the life of the Commissioner of Insurance Ms Maria van Beek has brought back into sharp focus three law enforcement challenges: the ease with which firearms – legal and illegal – are available to criminals, the hiring of hit men and the shocking failure of the police to solve crimes in this category.
These aside for the moment, even at the operational level the police were found wanting on the day of this attack. In the crucial minutes after Ms van Beek courageously drove from the scene there is no convincing evidence that the police swarmed the area, threw up roadblocks, tapped their intelligence on the street and immediately rounded up those who may have had some connection to this incident. Nearly two weeks after the shooting and two ID parades conducted by the police, a familiar chill has permeated this case and it appears destined for the dusty cold case shelves.
It’s been at least six or seven years – the height of the prison break-out carnage – since public clamour shone a brilliant spotlight on the police’s poor reaction time to major crimes. Police turned up too late, didn’t immediately pursue the escaping bandits and showed little appreciation of intelligence assets or investigative acumen. Members of the public sought two things: instantaneous communication by hotline or otherwise between police stations in the immediate vicinity of the crime for concerted action vis a vis cordoning off blocks or coordinating interdiction and rapid response units experienced in such situations. Just over seven years after the prison break and the rampage of Moore et al this government and its police force – notwithstanding the ongoing high-profile foreign assistance – have failed to create the desired matrix and every citizen is at the mercy of planned and determined attackers.
Now back to our three major issues. For years preceding the jail-break there had been calls for the government to enunciate some policy that would recognize and tackle the gun scourge. Successive PPP/C governments have adamantly refused to do this despite the growing threat to society by fingers on triggers and even though the police force itself has recognized the gravity of the problem. There has been complete indifference by the government to schemes such as amnesties and gun buybacks. On the other hand there has been a decision to assign gun licences and in many cases to those who meet the approval of the powers that be. Our virtually unpatrolled boundaries and the flow of illegal weapons by various means have mocked this policy default by the government. It must not and cannot continue and there should be a definitive statement from the Office of the President on it. Given the severity of the problem it is disappointing that Guyana was not among the 10 Caribbean countries which recently signed an agreement with the US to make the tracing of illegal weapons easier. Why didn’t the government make accession to this agreement a priority? Was it just the usual drift in deadlines or is there something else? President Jagdeo should provide an explanation.
Second, the hiring of gunmen has become an increasingly prevalent byproduct of the organized crime networks. The dozens of phantom squad cases aside, there have been several high-profile cases in recent years where it is suspected that the victims were killed by hired gunmen because of disputes. This suspicion has engulfed the killings of contractor Gazz Sheermohamed, cycling coach Maximillian Perreira and his wife, Marlis Archer, EPA employee Alicia Foster and a host of others. The modus operandi has been more or less the same. Gunmen ambush their prey after casing their movements and leave very little trace. The families are baffled, citizens are baffled and so, too, it would seem the police force.
Which brings us to the third major problem i.e. the utter failure of the police to provide answers in these cases after diligent investigations. No society under the varied stresses that Guyana is beset by can continue along the trajectory of not knowing who is behind a killing or attempted killing or why. Of course, there shall always be the celebrated unsolved killing because a near perfect crime was committed and the circumstances conspired to spare the killer though this was not the case with the Monica Reece murder. But it cannot be dozens and dozens of such cases. No democratic society should be allowed to turn a blind eye to dozens of mysterious killings as this administration has. An ordered, rule-bound society must be able to console its citizens that it has investigated these crimes, determined motives and prosecuted the culpable. There is no such comfort in this society and depending on the individual there are myriad conspiracy theories and motives to choose from. This creates a toxic, self-sustaining environment that perpetuates myths, hardens positions and infects the wider society.
The solution is the one that the public has been militating for but that the government has been lukewarm to. Professionalize the police force, get rid of the rotten rope and the dead weight and equip it with the necessary resources. To solve guns-for-hire crimes the police need authoritative ballistic capabilities – not the much-doubted results we hear from Eve Leary regularly, a state-of-the-art forensics lab which is still to be in place in the 17th year since the PPP was restored to power and an end to political interference in the work of the force.
It is not a tall order but the political will is clearly lacking.
