-questions raised about output from previous initiatives
On the heels of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Security Sector Reform Action Plan, the Ministry of Home Affairs will today open a two-day conference with the hope of building capacity in evidence-based crime prevention initiatives and facilitating coordination among key stakeholders.
At the end of the conference at the Liliendaal centre, which is being held under the theme ‘Making our Communities Safer’, a report is expected to be compiled and it would be used as a design for crime prevention, according to persons organising the conference.
Participants, who will include government officials, the joint services, representatives of non-governmental organisations, business and community leaders, youth leaders, religious personnel and representatives from UG and the Cyril Potter College of Education, will address “some of the social causes of crime.”
According to the invitation to participants the aim of the conference is to “lay the groundwork for practical partnerships in addressing crime and violence and for participants to gain a deeper understanding of the issues surrounding crime.” It was stated that the effects of crime on vulnerable groups including women, children and youths will also be examined during the conference.
It is not clear if the conference was on the agenda before the UK pulled out of the security reform project, however, observers have noted that whenever the administration is facing difficulties in the security sector it attempts to include the wider society in crime fighting. After the finance and energy are expended in the various initiatives the country is usually no where closer in taking a firm grip on crime and violence in Guyana, critics argue.
Observers have questioned the status of the various initiatives on crime the government has undertaken and while it would have been expected that some report on these initiatives would be delivered at the conference, Stabroek News was told that this is not on the agenda.
So maybe it will remain unclear what was the final outcome of the ‘National Stakeholders Forum’- which came together last year after the massacres in Lusignan and Bartica- which was expected to build a broad-based consensus against criminal violence. It was this very forum- in addition to pledging to establish a Standing Sectoral Committee on National Security in the National Assembly- which was expected to work with the administration and all parliamentary parties to jointly review the Guyana-UK security reform project, which is now history.
And what about the Steering Committee of the National Consultation on Crime which was put together at the height of the criminal violence on the East Coast in August 2002? The committee- which comprised the Central Islamic Organisation of Guyana, the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce, the Guyana Council of Churches, the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association, the Guyana Trades Union Con-gress, the Guyana Council of Churches and the army and police- had convened 26 consultations in seven regions. It made 526 recommendations on measures to be introduced in the fight against crime and then submitted a report to President Bharrat Jagdeo who had said the committee would have been kept informed of the deliberations on the recommendations. It is, however, unclear how this was done.
There was also the 26-member National Commis-sion on Law and Order (NCLO) which was established in 2005. Following the Lusignan massacre last year the body said it had convened a special meeting and its members had expressed their profound abhorrence and total condemnation of the crime that left 11 people dead including five children.
The commission had stated that it is tasked, inter alia, with the responsibility to: review and make recommendations to treat with the high crime rate and violence and measures which would foster wider public confidence and support. It was also to evolve greater awareness in the wider community of the multi-dimensional approaches required to fight crime and create safe communities and to encourage their greater involvement. It raises the question of why the need for this conference when it appears- if the commission is to be taken at its word – there is already a body in place to do just what this conference hopes to achieve.
In an attempt to explain what the conference is all about, the Government Information Agency (GINA) said it aims to place in proper perspective the issue of crime and violence in Guyana “…so as to minimize misapprehension and distortion of the issue’ build on current awareness of crime prevention strategies in order to make them more effective; provide guidance to communities in developing and implementing community-based solutions to crime and violence, particularly as they affect children, youths and women; foster integrated action between and among government and non-governmental partners including community leaders and faith-based groups in community crime and violence prevention efforts; and institutionalize and strengthen community-police partnership in crime prevention reduction.”
All of which would be accomplished at plenary sessions presided over by ‘internationally recognised experts specializing in crime and violence prevention’ and workshops following which a report would be complied. There would be no feedback, according to sources at the ministry, given to the participants of this report as it is really to guide the ministry in crime fighting.
According to GINA the security of citizens of “any country is of paramount importance” and as such over the years the government has implemented several initiatives to tackle the issue.
Observers say the conference will be under pressure to ensure it is not simply ‘another talk shop’.