Five months into an ambitious reform programme for the soon-to-be Guyana Police Service, the public would have to be excused if it declares that neither Home Affairs Minister, Mr Rohee nor the Police has been able to show evidence of convincing change. If anything, there has been regression.
The force is as moribund and crude as it has been in recent years and the Minister’s rhetoric has not inclined towards any tangible development in police reforms. There are undoubtedly signs that something is underway. These, however, are the signs of a hastily cobbled together, last ditch bid at reversing an irretrievable position with a smattering of consultants and cosmetic effects thrown in for good measure. As we have stated before in these columns, the public will only be impressed by one thing: results. Thus far there is no sign of this.
Before one gets to the crux of the continuing failures one should recognize two of the more recent measures given life by the minister. The first of these is Mr Rohee’s civilian oversight of the police reforms.
Ten persons have been picked with private sector input. One has long been associated with the police and another with the Ministry of Home Affairs. They occupy top positions in the oversight panel and by virtue of their previous association with the security sector they could not properly be considered as sufficiently removed from the arena they are exercising oversight over. The announcement of their appointment was made only in the Guyana Chronicle by way of advertisement. It appears that those who don’t read the state paper are not entitled to know who these monitors are. Further, monitors aren’t there just simply to satisfy themselves that something the minister conceived of is going the way he wants it to. The whole concept of civilian oversight should require the panel to form a lively connection with the general public and to assure it that it has its finger on the reform pulse and will advise fellow citizens of things going right or wrong. Nearly a month after their appointment the public has not been invited to share confidences with the panel. It is unknown how the panel intends to discharge its yet undefined duties, who it reports to, its lifespan and its terms and conditions. Presumably this is an oversight in the oversight process.
The Home Affairs Ministry, again only in the Guyana Chronicle, also announced a series of training programmes for policemen and women, another major plank in the reforms announced by Mr Rohee. These courses are being taken up in a wide breadth of locations: Jamaica, South Korea, Russia, the Netherlands and Canada and cover an equally broad range of topics of varying levels. It has the feel of scattershot taking up of places made available by friendly countries but devoid of any structure or cohesive outcome. What the police force needs is mass, organized training here from the bottom up. Sending policemen and women on a course here and there will not reverse the serious deficiencies in the force’s training and spark the transformation required to boost its morale and confidence. We presume that these courses are just incidental to the force’s major training plans.
Recent weeks have shown the palpable failures of policing and the real danger to members of the public and public safety as a result. There have been many examples but two will suffice. First, the murder of one of the force’s own, police corporal Romein Cleto. The corporal was gunned down on Avenue of the Republic as he went to investigate a suspicious vehicle. The occupants of the vehicle who murdered him clearly had nefarious plans they were desperate to hide at any cost and Corporal Cleto died a hero in the line of duty.
There was no good reason why the police should not have been able to intercept the vehicle carrying the killers that night. A decade of high crime in and around Georgetown since the 2002 jail-break should have primed the police to be able to lock down sections of the city block by block to find desperadoes like those in the vehicle who killed Corporal Cleto. The police failed to do this that night. The surveillance cameras which the government has installed at key points in the city and which are supposed to be feeding footage to some unknown entity apparently did not pick up any viable images that investigators could use. Are these cameras the real deal? The private sector, which was involved in the selection of the panel of 10 observers and has been playing an increasingly important role in national affairs, should seek convincing evidence from the government that these surveillance cameras are indeed working, that the images they are producing are of acceptable quality, that they are being transmitted live to the police force and that they are not being used for improper purposes.
These two failures fed into the eventual debacle surrounding the two men who were charged with Corporal Cleto’s murder and then embarrassingly let go after the advice of the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Forty statements, the DPP said, in the case of the first accused, provided no evidence that he was involved. Forty statements failed this test. How can such a poor case be used to charge a person for a capital crime unless this was just an attempt to impress the public and cover abject failures? Whatever the motivation the case collapsed ignominiously and left the police’s credibility in tatters – again. It reinforces the long-held belief that the police lack the ability to undertake rigorous and thorough evidenced-based investigations. Moreover, this probe was swathed in the unflattering light of charges of police brutality and torture. The main accused and a woman who was to be a witness against him complained to the media of torture and coercion. Were we not supposed to be in the midst of genuine reforms?
For the police to have a chance of being taken seriously by the public there must be an investigation into the manner in which the statements for this case were put together and the process that led to a decision to charge. The claims by the accused and the witness of brutality must be fully investigated in a manner that would assure the public that the truth will be gleaned and that future investigations will not be marred by such controversy. The police should in the meanwhile state what internal measures have been adopted to address the sloppy probe and the claims of brutality and torture.
The second case is that of the hair-raising murder of the Mohotoos in Turkeyen. The brazen, unhurried murder of the cambio dealer and his wife and the setting off of an explosion in their home falls into the category of revenge/`hit’/organized crime killings that the police have failed to make inroads in. Dozens of these have occurred in the past years and remain unsolved. This one already appears to be one for the history books and has the hallmarks of the type of crime that undermines the safety of all citizens. The killer/s were unperturbed about the surveillance cameras all around, the noise that they made in killing the duo, the state of the roads which made ingress and egress noisy and the prospect, however remote it was, of a rapid police reaction. The solving of this crime requires attention to the phone traffic to the couple before the killings, tyre marks left on the road, forensic evidence from within the house and a careful examination of the background of the cambio dealer. Thus far there is no sign that any of this has been done or has yielded results.
Major reform of the police force will not be achieved by grafting ornaments onto a weak, decrepit structure. The force from top to bottom is in desperate need of fundamental change at many levels. There are major, immediate needs including the placing of experienced law enforcers in its ranks to oversee investigations and to begin the painstaking process of restoring the honour of the force and its credibility in the eyes of the public. Minister Rohee and his government should begin addressing this if they expect these reforms to be taken seriously.
