This is the view of retired brigadier David Granger who has labelled the deployment of the army in Buxton a mistake that could have contributed to the instability of Guyana.
“It is something to be avoided because there is always the danger that the criminals could have tried to subvert the loyalty of the soldiers,” Granger said in a recent interview with Stabroek News.
Granger who has wide expertise on security matters and was one of the members of the Disciplined Forces Commission (DFC), strongly feels that there needs to be an independent commission of enquiry into the criminal upsurge in Guyana in recent years.
The aim of such an enquiry, which he said should be done by locals as the country does have independent and competent persons, would be to reform the Guyana Police Force, a process long overdue. Granger feels that without a major reform of the police force, which is 170 years old but has not kept up with the changes in criminal activities, the country would be unable to effectively fight crime.
In the wide-ranging interview the security expert questioned why the more than 100 recommendations made by the DFC were not implemented and also why recommendations from the Symonds’ Report, which was done with the assistance of the British Government some years ago, are yet be put into practice.
‘Nipped in the bud’
“If you had an efficient police force that would never have arrived – the Clarke situation – even if he were inclined to be criminal; it would have been nipped in the bud, so to speak. Things have been spinning out of control because of [lack of] reform and the longer it takes for reform to take place the longer you would take to suppress criminal violence,” Granger said.
Clarke was sentenced last month to time served in the US after he pleaded guilty to trafficking in narcotics. He had handed himself over to the US authorities in 2006 after he learnt he was indicted with drug trafficking. At the time, he was still a serving member of the GDF.
While the US said Clarke, who was allowed to remain in the US with his family, conspired with drug kingpin Shaheed Roger Khan to traffic in narcotics, President Bharrat Jagdeo has publicly accused the former army member of working with criminal elements in Buxton. The President said he was given this information years ago by Buxtonians but because he wanted to protect their identities, he did not have the officer court-martialled. Instead, he blocked his promotion; Clarke was still subsequently promoted.
According to Granger, who said he did not have much information on the Clarke issue except what he had read in the news, the overexposure of army officers to criminal situations without the police being present could always be risky.
“As far as Clarke is concerned it is quite obvious from what the President said that he was aware that Clarke was involved in some form of criminal behaviour,” Granger said. “I don’t know the specifics about that but it is quite clear also that because of the nature of the criminal violence that (a) the bandits themselves were involved (b) the villagers were involved, and (c) the drug traffickers were involved and at least some phantom gang, funded and equipped by drug traffickers was involved.”
An aberration
Meanwhile, Granger labelled the deployment of the army into Buxton as “an aberration” and something that should not have happened as while the deployment was correct and legal, the modus operandi was flawed.
He pointed out that such a deployment could have contributed to the instability as it is very important for civil government, the regional administration and the police to be in contact with the citizens and for the defence force to stay back.
He said it is the responsibility of the police to get information and process that information into intelligence and for them to have informants and conduct investigations and enquiries — all of which the army is not trained to do.
And with the intelligence, operations set up to fight crime would be more precise and not drag on for years.
“The defence force does not have law enforcement as its primary role; it is meant to assist the police force and if the police force was not prepared to take the lead in law enforcement it meant that the defence force was expected to do things that it was not trained to do…
“On every single exercise on which it embarked the police should have been present and the defence force should have been assisting police,” Granger said.
He stressed that there is nothing illegal about the defence force being deployed in internal security duties as it is provided for in the Defence Act, but it must always be in support of the police force.
The former brigadier said it was obvious “from newspaper reports” that the defence force, on some occasions, was acting on its own and he cannot understand how that could have been authorised.
“Deploying the defence force to actually live in an area, a zone where there is widespread breakdown of law and order, I think, was quite risky. I have never seen it happen before, they would stay on the outskirts, they would stay at a police station and move into an area where an operation ought to be conducted, but to actually live inside the village was quite risky.
“You are bringing servicemen, soldiers and officers who have a completely different training, they are not trained to investigate, they are not trained to arrest and in some cases they don’t have powers to arrest… they don’t have powers to interrogate.”
He said some people don’t understand the roles of the forces as they think they are interchangeable but deploying soldiers to do police work is “like putting firemen there… they are not trained to do that, they would make mistakes. All four forces have completely different types of training, the defence force, the police, the prison service and the fire service, they are not interchangeable.”
Drug traffickers
“It became very messy, very bloody; a lot of people got killed…” Granger said in reference to the criminal upsurge on the East Coast.
Granger said that it also should be considered that it was not just the security forces on one side and the criminals on the other side but there was also the involvement of drug traffickers.
He mentioned convicted drug trafficker Roger Khan’s public statement that he had had a hand in crime fighting.
“As time went on it became more complicated… I think we have seen the damage that narco-trafficking has done to other countries like Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala, and I think once narco-traffickers are involved there is going to be extreme violence; there is going to be corruption; there is going be graft; policemen are going to be employed on the side of the drug traffickers and the conflict is likely to get worse rather than better.”
Going back to the DFC, Granger disclosed that all of the persons who went before the commission when asked what the biggest threat to national security was, said drugs.
“… Drugs bring guns; drugs corrupt law enforcement officers and officials. There is money laundering. There is everything… it is not a victimless crime,” he said.
‘Commission of enquiry’
And to get a better understanding of what happened on the East Coast, the former army head called for a commission of enquiry.
“The whole criminal episode needs to be investigated, people need to be called, evidence needs to be taken, analysis needs to be done to prevent a recurrence and you see we can learn, we can learn from a proper commission of enquiry. It is not a matter of embarrassing one group or another, it is a matter of preventing recurrence,” he told Stabroek News.
He said there were several dimensions playing out on the East Coast and also mentioned the murders of former agriculture minister Satyadeow Sawh, his siblings and security guard; killings for which no answers have been provided and most of those who may have provided answers have been killed.
“It is probably the most complex law enforcement operation we have ever had in this country…,” Granger said about the occurrence on the East Coast.
“What is needed is a commission of enquiry to examine all of those deaths, all of those incidents all over again. It could be similar to the Disciplinary Forces Commission,” he suggested.
“It has to be an independent judicial enquiry. I don’t think that the type of activity by the joint opposition parties is sufficient, that in itself is an attempt to prod the government to have a formal enquiry.”
The joint opposition parties last year published a dossier on human rights abuses here which they say placed a spotlight on the deteriorating security situation in Guyana. The parties had said that the dossier is intended to establish that there is a sufficient prima facie basis to warrant further interrogation of grave human rights abuses by an independent body with the requisite legal authority.
And while the opposition parties have called for an international enquiry to be conducted, Granger said he believes that the enquiry should be done by locals.
“I think we have the competence to have a local enquiry, in fact having served on the DFC, I would say yes that we do have the competence. [But we must] have independent people, we have all witnessed the death and destruction of that episode and to have people who are independent is what is desired.
“I think it would be good for the country as a whole if a careful and independent enquiry were conducted over that whole period of the troubles, even before 2002 going back all the way to Blackie London in 2000 [who was killed during a police and army operation in Eccles], because that was when we started to see violent crime and maybe a more violent response from the police and obviously things were just spinning out of control,” he said.
Police reform
“I think the question of criminal violence and the response to criminal violence is at the centre of police reform. I don’t think police reform should take place in a vacuum. We have had an extreme situation and I think that should guide us to the direction police reform should take.”
The country’s objective should be to make its citizens safe Granger posited, adding that if there is a threat of violent crime the police force must be equipped, trained and deployed to cope with the violence. He said citizens want to be safe, even those living in troubled villages as no one wants to live on the edge and be anxious and have the fear of being killed like Donna Herod, who was caught in the crossfire while escorting her child from nursery school in Buxton. He said depending on the analysis derived from the commission of enquiry, the GDF could also be trained to give appropriate support to the police.
“I think an independent commission of enquiry would eliminate some of the guesswork and would put police reform back on the correct track. Right now it seems to have stalled. Acceptance of the DFC report, reintroduction of the security sector reform action plan, all these things seemed to have stalled.”
Granger pointed out that after the massacres at Lusignan and Bartica, it was expected that there would have been an institutionalisation of civil society involvement in national security but this seems to have stalled. He said Guyana would be a safer country if the recommendations were implemented as the core of the matter is the need for the holistic reform of the police force.
“The whole police force has to be looked at all over again….” he stressed.
Importantly, Granger said, the police force is 170 years old and at the start of the troubles on the East Coast in 2002 it was clear that despite its years in law enforcement the force was not prepared for the surge in violence.
“That should have indicated, even at that time, that the police force was in need of reform because what started off as… violent criminal episodes ought to have been suppressed by the police force. But the defence force had to be called in to quell the troubles on the East Coast,” Granger said.
Crime has been changing and the force has not been changing quickly enough to keep abreast with crime, Granger said. He recalled that even before the troubles had broken out on the East Coast, the British government had been approached through the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to conduct a study of the force and make recommendations for its reform.
“To date I think that is the single most thorough study that has been done on the police force. It is called the Symonds Report and I am not aware that it has ever been fully implemented.”
Granger is of the firm belief that what happened in the crime upsurge and what is happening now are consequences of the failure to implement the recommendations made over the last ten years.
He feels that the Symonds Report and the recommendations by the DFC, together “constitute a substantial body of recommendations which could make the force better, or more capable of responding to violent crime.”
