Dear Editor,
“Optimal.” That is the word Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, used to describe law and order in Guyana. This was not uttered in a rum shop where intoxication is an excuse. It came in Parliament, the highest office of the land. Maybe intoxication of power is the excuse there. Now, Minister Rohee admitted there is room for improvement, but who can improve on ‘optimal’ law and order? There are insults and then there is this insult. The kind of insult that Ramodit Roopnarine, Seema Mangar and Neesa Gopaul and others have been insulted with.
‘Optimal’ law and order in Guyana means drug cartels roaming free. It means the rich and the powerful brutalizing the poor. It means child molesters, contraband traders, reckless and drunk drivers, domestic abusers, corruption takers, bribe seekers and the other criminals in this land going untouched every day. The police force says it is short 700 to 800 men and their Minister proclaims law and order is optimal. Murders are occurring at a record-breaking pace. People break out into a cold sweat in the middle of the night at the mere sound of a barking dog.
Children are being shot in the back and burned by police brutality. A grenade explodes in crowed marketplaces. Domestic violence is on the rise. Guns are becoming as easy to get as cocaine. Law and order is under siege in this country. People cannot even take an evening stroll in their homeland for fear of being robbed. Yet we have ‘optimal law and order.’
The breakdown of the moral code and the hasty plunge into criminality in Guyana is apparent to anyone who does not suffer from delusions.
I can understand a Minister trying to project calm or to promote himself and his performance. But I cannot understand this blatant chicanery. This statement should be a wake-up sign for all Guyanese and particularly for those who feel most threatened by and fearful of crime in this country. Indian-Guyanese form a large part of that latter group.
This fiasco will amplify fear among Guyanese and moreso among those most trapped in and fearful of fear. Fear is good business for some around this time of electioneering. Sales will be brisk. Fear keeps people cornered and in a tight defensive circle ready to enter the political shelters of their masters. If this current mayhem that is Guyana is seen as optimal law and order then I don’t want to see sub-optimal law and order.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
