Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the abandonment of the UK Security Sector Reform Programme is the unmistakable signal from the Guyana Government that the course as it relates to security issues is set. There is no turning back, no change in direction, no softening of stances, no openness, no review of past atrocities because the stakes for the government are too high. Whatever the misunderstandings between the two sides it was expected that there would be a resolution. After all, Guyana has presented itself to the international community as a basket case always in need of handouts or concessional treatment. In this case at least 3 million pounds sterling was being made available by London and with it the tangible prospect of root and branch reform of policing. Such a combination could not conceivably have been refused by Georgetown and the incredulous resort by Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon to sovereignty as the grounds for balking is only exceeded in vacuousness by the claim that the UK had withdrawn from the project over the refusal by Georgetown to permit a live firing exercise in the west of Guyana. The strident lamentation of sovereignty does not appear consistent with this country’s offer of almost its entire stock of forests in the fight against climate change.
Given the present state of insecurity in the country and a near decade of inexplicable carnage, rampant drug trafficking and narco-terrorism, the only rational course for this government would have been ready acceptance of the plan even if it required the placement of foreign professionals in the police force to oversee the progress of the reforms. Indeed, this is something that had been called for by many including this newspaper since the restoration of democracy in 1992. If the government took the pulse of the people, even in the communities which most staunchly support it, the reading would have been overwhelming support for this project no matter what. The government by creating the conditions for the rejection of this project has clearly shown its hand. It has come at a particularly crucial moment which portends that the brutish and clueless policing that citizens have endured for most of the 17 years of PPP/C governance will not change.
First, the shocking revelations last week that two boys have been tortured while in the custody of the police has brutally made the point that without real reforms the barbarity that has engulfed the security sector will continue unabated. It was evident in the army as it relates to Dweive Kant Ramdass, in the prisons as it related to Edwin Niles and in the police with respect to the suspects in the Ramnauth Bisram case and many others. Once the problem has become systemic, as it has, it won’t be eliminated by platitudes, new lock-ups and outrageous rewards to the police for the gunning down of suspected criminals. The grossest irony of all is that while Police Commissioner Henry Greene and Crime Chief Seelall Persaud were admonishing the media on Friday for not recognizing the successes of the police force in solving crimes, two teenage suspects were having to endure torture and brutality. Is this the method for success that the Commissioner and his Crime Chief are boasting of? In a shameless attempt to cover up, the police then infringed on the rights of the press to cover this case in court. This was a most outrageous act and one that the Guyana Press association should immediately take up with the police.
As in several other cases, the death of Mr Bisram, formerly a senior figure in the Region Three administration, created pressure on the government and the police to produce results so as to placate their constituency. The end result was the perpetuating of this vicious cycle of torturing suspects. Despite having been rapped over its breach of obligations under the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment the government and its security arms remain unmoved and there will most likely be adverse reports to and from the Committee on what has transpired in this case, further sullying the country’s image but hopefully forcing some change in its behaviour.
After the questions about the Joint Services possible culpability for the Lindo Creek massacre and the parade of incidents exposing their criminal violence, there is little else that President Jagdeo or his Minister of Home Affairs can say that will make any sense. No committee or stentorian denunciations of this latest shocking incident will convince the people that credible action will be taken and that real change will come.
The other area in which it is clear that there will be no progress is the investigation into the murders committed by the Roger Khan phantoms and those by the prison escapees. By refusing the call for an impartial inquiry into the depredations of Roger Khan and those who launched the crime spree, the government has engaged in the crudest act of self-preservation. It knows that an impartial enquiry will most likely expose the deep and bloody links between the Roger Khan phantoms on one hand and the security arms and government officials on the others. The government as evidenced by its utterances will clearly not risk this ergo its deputiing of the police force and its Commissioner to mount a probe of what was known of Roger Khan’s activities here. The public riposte has been that if the government and police had no knowledge of Mr Khan’s drug trafficking here for many years and his phantom machinery then it clearly couldn’t pick up the trail so long after the fact.
This government has lost all credibility in relation to policing and law enforcement in this country. It can rebuild as many stations as it likes under the IDB’s Citizen Security Programe, hand over as many motorbikes and shiny new trucks to the police as it likes but it won’t be able to wash away the evidence of a terminal failure of its own security services to operate by the rule of law.
The only hope for real improvement will have to await general elections in 2011 but in the meanwhile the task falls upon all good citizens to do their utmost in which ever way possible to expose the grisly crimes of elements in the joint services and to hold them and the government fully accountable.
