Against the backdrop of territorial threats from Venezuela and Suriname, President David Granger yesterday unveiled a Total National Defence policy which among other things calls for an upgrade and re-organisation of the army and the re-establishment of a reserve force.
“This policy will, on implementation, give our regular and reserve forces the resources they need to perform their mission over the next five years. The long-term objective is to ensure that Guyanese will be able to depend on defence forces, which will ensure the safety of the citizens and the security of the country,” the President told Guyana Defence Force (GDF) officers at the army’s headquarters Camp Ayanganna, yesterday, according to a text of his address sent to the news media. His engagement with the officers was closed to the press.
The President, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, highlighted that Guyanese today, live in a region characterised by uneasiness, uncertainty and unpredictability. He pointed to the actions of Venezuela and Suriname over the years and said that Guyana is in a state of permanent engagement in contrived controversies that have been invented by those two countries. According to Granger, to survive in such a race means that there must be a plan for total national defence.
This implies that all the elements and instruments of national power need constantly to be employed in order to protect Guy-ana’s territory, he emphasised. “The age of very visible warfare, in the form of harassment on our borders or the intrusion of gunboats into our waters is not yet over,” the president warned.
He highlighted the words on the role of the GDF in the Constitution and the Border and National Security Commit-tee (BNSC) and declared that in light of the injunction of the national Constitution, the counsel of the Committee and the aggressive persistence of these territorial claims, Guyana now needs to carefully define its policy for total national defence.
Core capabilities
“Guyana needs a well-commanded, well-trained, well-equipped defence force with the core capabilities to keep our citizens safe and secure. The GDF, in order to fulfil its mission must be multi-role, flexible and fully-integrated with sufficient support wea-pons,” the President said.
He outlined five pillars on which it must be based namely personnel, readiness, infrastructure, morale and equipment. He said that the GDF must be brought up to the authorised establishment strength to meet current and unforeseen challenges. A study will be done to examine how the ‘regular force’ could be augmented. “The ‘reserve force’ must be re-constituted and maintained at a minimum of 50 per cent of the strength of the ‘regular force’,” the president said.
He added that the GDF must be prepared to deploy to any part of Guyana at short notice in response to government direction and the condition of airstrips, barracks, hangars, wharves and other infrastructure must be maintained in a serviceable condition to conduct operations. He said that the Force must maintain its esprit de corps in order to enable troops to support its mission and to function as a unit in order to achieve its objectives. “The Force must have the capacity to maintain adequate combat-ready units with the correct mix of personnel and equipment. Aircraft, road vehicles and maritime vessels, inevi-tably, will be degraded over time but must be repaired or replaced if efficiency is to be ensured,” the President said.
Adjutant General
He emphasised that the GDF must change in order to strengthen these five pillars and the changes must start at the top, at the level of the general staff, in order to improve specialization and the quality of service. He disclosed that the positions of Adjutant General, Quartermaster General and Inspector General, have been restored.
“Other changes are necessary to enable the GDF to fulfil its Constitutional mandate and to perform its functions. These changes must be designed to develop the Force’s capability to provide continuous surveillance over Guyana’s air, territorial and maritime borders and approaches, to provide search-and-rescue services to persons in distress and to provide assistance to the civil authority in response to any threat or disaster,” he said.
The president also disclosed that greater emphasis will now be placed on the technical corps: the Air Corps, Coast Guard and Engineer Corps, and said that these should be upgraded.
He asserted that greater emphasis will also be placed on the three auxiliaries. The president said that the Reserve Force – which was called the Guyana People’s Militia – will be re-established as a credible reserve in all ten regions. He added that the National Cadet Corps is to be re-established while the Civil Defence Corps is to be established to support the work of the Civil Defence Commission in responding to and managing disasters.
The president emphasised that Guyana’s defence policy, as proposed in the BNSC Report, should be in accord with the state’s foreign policy and diplomatic posture. “Defence diplomacy contributes to building confidence between armed forces and, in extreme cases, to preventing conflict, managing crises and resolving disputes between states. Guyana has gained much by establishing itself as a reliable partner in regional and hemispheric security and stability. This form of diplomacy should be enhanced,” he said.
Meantime, the president pointed out that Guyana faces continuous challenges to public security and public order. “Changes in the international and national environments made some of Guyana’s old approaches to public order and national security ineffectual. Law enforcement agencies could not respond appropriately to the new threats which, if left unchecked, could allow power to fall into the hands of undesirables,” he warned.
Granger said that criminal activities such as drug-trafficking, money-laundering, back-trafficking and gun-running are often interrelated and operations cannot be conducted successfully against one to the exclusion of another. “There is a need, therefore, for the adoption of a policy of total national defence that will “…implement a national security strategy that employs all instruments of national power in a more integrated way” to meet the challenge faced by Guyana at this time. This would require a much higher degree of inter-agency co-operation than obtains at present, to combine defence with diplomacy, economic development with law enforcement, and the civil authority with the defence force,” he said.
He pointed out that while the Defence Act indeed prescribes for the GDF to be charged with the “maintenance of order” when required, there must not be an easy recourse to deploying troops in a public order role on the streets and villages.
“The Force should operate alongside the police. It must always be in support of and never on its own. Operations, in future, should have a clear and carefully defined mission. Troops, once their mission has been accomplished, should return to barracks. The Force must not be allowed to become part of the rural landscape. The business of public order and everyday law enforcement, such as catching criminals, is a police task and should remain so,” Granger said.
