Wherever and whenever we experience a persistent spate of robberies – whether these may target sections of the business community, private homes or citizens going about their routine business – those institutions responsible for protecting the citizenry have every right to worry. We have experienced and continue to experience the targeting of particular categories of business persons like miners and downtown businessmen and women and the victims have been personalities of all races and sometimes, indeed, quite often these days, different nationalities.
The conventional wisdom has always been that the targets of these robberies are persons who are believed to possess valuables and there has never been any reason to believe otherwise, since common sense tells us that it is the perception of the would-be robber about whether the potential victim has valuables worth taking away that is likely to influence the robbery.
Robbers also make other types of assessments of their potential victims and it may well be that the newness the recent arrivals among the Chinese traders might, arguably, make them ‘easier pickings’ than those traders and other business persons whose familiarity with the terrain have, over time, made them more security conscious.
Truth be told there are those who would argue that a combination of more resourceful, better-armed criminals and lower levels of police protection are the real reasons for the increase in crimes that target the private sector though, quizzically, the Ministry of Home Affairs, in its recent pronouncement on what it says are “persistent” robberies against Chinese, appears to have ignored altogether these factors. Instead, it has underlined what it says is a coincidence between these robberies and “a politically inspired and orchestrated campaign by known opposition elements.”
One might well ask whether the Ministry of Home Affairs possesses any stronger evidence of what one might call a ‘tie in’ between robberies against Chinese businesses and what it says is an “orchestrated campaign by known opposition elements” and if, indeed, there is evidence of such a ‘tie in’, whether it might not be worth putting such evidence on the table. Would the Ministry of Home Affairs say too that the relatively frequent robberies that appear to target Brazilian businessmen, mostly miners, and Guyanese entrepreneurs are a function of some phenomenon apart from the perception that the victims have valuables worth taking away.
And what about this remarkable allegation of a “campaign” which the ministry says “is characterised by sustained and systematic efforts of vilification, criminalisation and xenophobic in character aimed primarily against the Chinese community?” Is that not going clear over the top? Can we honestly say that the decidedly small demonstrations mounted near the site of the Marriott Hotel – for reasons which the government must bear some responsibility – and which have been particularly confined, have somehow, without our even noticing it, bourgeoned into a spate of violent attacks against the Chinese all designed to give vent to spleen over the Marriott issue?
Of course the Ministry of Home Affairs has every right to be concerned about those victims of robberies who are Chinese as much as it has a responsibility to be concerned over robberies that affect any group/race/nationality. But then if the ministry seeks to strain credulity by throwing around emotive phrases like “surge of criminal attacks” and “politically inspired and orchestrated campaign” and “hostile campaign taken against Chinese nationals” then it really needs to put something more than hot air on the table or else, run the risk of being accused of, at best, being decidedly alarmist or, at worst, hatching political mischief.
