Within weeks of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal of its projected Security Sector Reform Action Plan, a gang of bandits staged an assault on several state properties in the heart of Georgetown and escaped. The incident highlighted the absolute necessity for security sector reform at this time by exposing the continuing incapacity of the Guyana Police Force to protect the city.
A few days after the Georgetown incident, a release from the Government Information Agency disclosed that Secretary to the Defence Board Dr Roger Luncheon and Adviser to the President on Governance Gail Teixeira met stakeholders in civil society – the private sector, organised labour, religious faiths, government agencies and non-governmental organisations – on November 9 to apprise them of the aborted Security Sector Reform Action Plan.
This is not the first time that the administration has resorted to seeking the support of civil society when a security crisis occurs. Citizens should be familiar with the formula for formal, set-piece consultations over the past decade. But can anything be expected from this latest hasty initiative?
In the aftermath of two of the worst massacres since independence, when twenty-three persons were slaughtered at Lusignan and Bartica in January and February last year, the administration convened a series of consultations with civil society. Those consultations – which gelled into the National Stakeholders Forum – were an attempt to build a broad-based consensus against criminal violence. The forum faithfully pledged to “commit their full and unqualified support [for] the joint services in confronting crime in the country and in securing the safety of our citizens under the law.”
More important, the forum also agreed to establish a Standing Sectoral Committee on National Security in the National Assembly and promised to work with the administration and all parliamentary political parties to jointly review the Guyana-Britain Security Sector Reform Action Plan. How much has been accomplished in the past twenty-one months? What has been the outcome?
It is recalled, also, that the administration appointed the Steering Committee of the National Consultation on Crime at the height of the troubles on the East Coast in August 2002. That committee comprised representatives of civil society – Central Islamic Organisation, Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Guyana Council of Churches, Guyana Manufacturers’ Association, Guyana Trades Union Congress – in addition to the Guyana Defence Force and Guyana Police Force.
After 26 consultations in seven regions, the committee churned out 526 recommendations on measures to be introduced in the fight against crime. It subsequently submitted a report to the President who gave the assurance that the report would receive “full deliberation” and that [the committee] would be “kept informed of progress.” That was nearly seven years ago. What has been the outcome?
Then Minister of Home Affairs Gail Teixeira launched the National Commission on Law and Order in November 2005. When he took over the portfolio, Clement Rohee launched a four-month-long consultation with civil society throughout the regions. He advised that he did not want it to become “another talk shop” and that the commission would work hard to ensure that systems were “put in place.” That was three years ago. What has been the outcome?
There has been much consultation with civil society on security sector reform but little implementation of agreements by the administration. The administration’s desultory engagements with civil society have been superficial, stereotyped and sterile. The administration alone must bear responsibility for jettisoning the ₤3M British-funded Plan – the most promising prospect for holistic security reform in the past decade – a decision from which civil society was sidelined.
Now that fire-bombing has frightened the authorities, what is civil society expected to do to without the money?