The government yesterday confirmed a BBC report that a 4.9m pounds sterling security sector reform project with the UK had collapsed following differences between the two countries.
In a statement last night, the Office of the President (OP) linked the collapse of the project to the denial of a UK request for a live firing exercise in the west of Guyana.
“This decision by the UK Government is believed to be linked to the administration’s refusal to permit training of British Special Forces in Guyana using live firing in a hinterland community on the western border with Brazil and Venezuela”, the OP statement said last night.
Observers note, however, that the project had been in serious trouble earlier this year after Guyana objected to certain preconditions which were thought to include the stationing of overseas law enforcement professionals in the police force here. The dispute had sparked sharp statements from Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, who had responsibility for the project, and the British High Commissioner here, Fraser Wheeler. Luncheon went as far as offering his resignation to the President over the dispute.
Yesterday, the BBC Caribbean report disclosed that the project had been called off after the two countries failed to agree on its management.
It said that the decision to abandon the programme followed a meeting between a top official of the UK’s Department for International Development, DfID, and Guyana’s President, Bharrat Jagdeo.
Last night, Luncheon issued his own statement on the matter.
He said the decision by the UK Government was believed to be linked to the administration’s refusal to permit training of British Special Forces in Guyana using live firing in a community on the western border with Brazil and Venezuela.
“The position of the Government of Guyana is that indeed the decision is regrettable. Guyanese would recall that the project itself attracted quite a bit of media attention and has indeed been characterized by ups and downs in the public engagements; however, the trend in the negotiation was what led to expectations that the project itself would be approved and implemented.”
He noted that as late as December 2008, the two parties had agreed on it in Georgetown and a design was submitted to the principals in the UK for their blessings. He pointed out that in April 2009 Guyanese were advised about a redesign that was unilaterally carried out by the UK when they submitted their response to the joint December 2008 submission.
“This design violated the sovereignty of Guyana. It was drawn to the attention of the British High Commission here in Guyana and after efforts it was agreed that the government would submit its revised version of the British design. The President was involved in that activity and ultimately the British High Commission was presented with a document that in great detail outlined what was the Guyanese version of the model to be used to design and ultimately to implement the Security Sector Reform project”, Luncheon said.
Luncheon said that President Jagdeo was later informed that the project itself had been halted and the UK Government had provided him with information saying that they were not interested in pursuing an agreement with the Government of Guyana.
Said Luncheon: “It is tempting to believe that this about face from the December 2008 joint agreement to what happened in the middle of 2009 might have been associated with some decision that the Guyanese Government made with request to training by the UK Special Forces, on a Western border location with live firing to which the government was unprepared to support.”
“It could be that the UK Government did not fully appreciate how dearly held was our position on the non-violation of the sovereignty of Guyana. Their insistence in installing in their design in April, … management features that seriously compromise Guyana’s ownership and when our new design re-established ownership that was more consistent with our notions of sovereignty, the plug was pulled. I started by saying it was regrettable; it’s unfortunate because our joint positions at the beginning was Security Sector Reform in its entirety was indeed in our best interest. Security Sector Reform will continue in Guyana, maybe at a different pace and the scope and the design will be different, but the implementation of that will be from public funds from the Government of Guyana”, he added.
The scrapping of the project and the tiff over it will be tagged as a worsening of relations between the two countries at a time when Guyana needs to mobilize as much support as possible for security and its low carbon development strategy. Britain is a key player in this process and the scuppering of the deal would likely point to its dissatisfaction with Georgetown over the fundamentals of security reform. Various interest groups have urged root and branch reform of the police force to curb corruption.
The UK deal had been conceptualized shortly after the massacres in 2007 and following a request from the government here which had been deeply shocked by the killings. Observers said interest in Georgetown for the project diminished after the security situation improved. The government here has steadfastly rebuffed any attempt to place foreign professionals in the force or to cede any modicum of control over the force.
In June, British High Commissioner Wheeler had said that he was “frustrated” with the delays in implementation and he blamed persons in government “quibbling” over administrative details for holding it up. Although he did not go into the details of the delay in the process, he emphasised that the UK sees the need for “very tight management of resources” in the current economic climate. “The administration of money should not be a deal breaker, I would hope, [the reform is] too important for that,” Wheeler said.
An interim Memorandum of Understanding for the Security Sector Reform Action Plan was signed in August 2007. Since that time, Luncheon has been responsible for engagement with the UK government’s representatives.
Late last year, a framework for the “Formulation and Implementation of a National Security Policy and Strategy” was concluded. Subsequently, in April the representatives of the UK’s DfID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) advised that their government had given approval for the agreed design for reform and they offered two documents that provided details of implementation.
It was this April report that Dr Luncheon had strongly objected to in letters he wrote to President Jagdeo and Wheeler.
“The content of their April submission is offensive, suggesting that Guyana is totally incapable of managing its own Security Sector Reform and needed to be spoon fed in the implementing of all aspects of the Security Sector Reform contemplated in the GOG/UK engagement,” Luncheon informed Jagdeo in the letter. He added that based on their submissions, he could not accept that the resident representatives of the British government seriously intended his continued involvement.
“Mr. President, I am left to conclude that the representatives had to have an ulterior motive in presenting these two documents whose content they were quite aware I would find offensive and unacceptable,” he had said.
Luncheon’s letter also indicated that the engagements had been “challenging” and he said his experiences revealed the UK’s representatives to be “insincere and inconsistent” with regard to Guyana’s concerns about national ownership of the process. “The records would show that with each important step along the way I have had to repeatedly address issues of National Ownership and even resort to your inputs at times,” he wrote.
He also communicated similar concerns about the motives of the British government’s resident representatives to Wheeler, explaining that it was owing to his disappointment with the UK’s proposals on management of the project, the process and the timeline, that he intended to withdraw from further participation. He also mentioned his recommendation to his principals that the proposals be rejected in their entirety, while suggesting that they did not reflect the commitments agreed during the bilateral engagements.
Although he noted the Guyana’s government’s “profoundly negative reactions” to the proposals, Luncheon also indicated to Wheeler its appreciation of the efforts made during the bilateral engagements “in progressively agreeing in principle” with a programme for security sector reform in Guyana.
In keeping with components of the plan, in January this year, Major General (Ret) Michael Atherly was appointed Project Coordinator for Security Sector Reform, with a Security Sector Reform Secretariat established within the Office of the President, while the National Assembly approved the creation of an Oversight Committee for the Security Sector.
The five main elements of the plan cover building the operational capacity of the police force; strengthening policy-making across the security sector to make it more transparent, effective, and better coordinated; mainstreaming financial management in the security sector into public sector financial management reform; creating substantial parliamentary and other oversight of the security sector; and building greater public participation and inclusiveness in security sector issues. The plan was specifically designed to complement the ongoing IDB Citizen Security and Justice Reform programmes, in a bid to tackle crime and security in a holistic manner.
A parliamentary committee has been set up to review the plan’s implementation, but it has met only once to elect a chairman. The review committee is expected to receive and examine official annual reports from the administration on the status of the implementation of the activities in 11 priority areas on an annual basis and also to provide a final report to the National Assembly of its examination of the reports on the implementation of the entire action plan.
The priority areas were identified after extensive discussions and consultations with stakeholders, including the leadership of the law enforcement agencies, the public and the donor community.
Among the short-term priority areas were: the establishment of a special firearms support team to execute high-risk operations with regard to terrorism, hijacking, hostage release and negotiations and specialized tactical deployment; developing an anti-crime unit through support for an operational protocol, provide training on technical aspects of anti-crime operations and the acquisition of operational equipment and resources among other things; boosting crime intelligence by supporting the capability of the police force with regard to the gathering, analysis, interpretation, dissemination and management of strategic and operational crime-related information; and developing forensic capacity.
