Wednesday will mark three weeks since the ghastly Carifesta Avenue accident which claimed three lives and was later revealed to have been as a result of an intelligence-gathering operation under the aegis of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU). Aside from the public consternation and bewilderment at this tragic but patently unprofessional operation, questions have been mounting for the government and its security agencies. Adequate time must be given to the relevant agencies to scrupulously conduct their investigations but at the same time the government must understand that this incident has gone beyond the ordinary. The operation was redolent with sinister connotations and the public will not rest easily, neither should the government, until there is a clear and detailed explanation of all of its elements.
The response of the security apparatus thus far has not been comforting. Even though it has been acknowledged that this was a SOCU-led operation, the agency has not uttered a single word and certainly did not provide the first official word that this had been an intelligence operation that had gone horribly wrong. It was left to the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) to do that by way of confirming that Sergeant Robert Pyle, who had been driving one of the vehicles and who perished had been on an authorised operation. It would be the height of absurdity to suggest that SOCU because of the sensitive operations it is conducting is precluded from even confirming basic information. The silence of its Head, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Sydney James is therefore very troubling. The Guyana Police Force under which SOCU comes has also had little to say about the operation, another troubling indicator. At the conclusion of the various investigations, the public will be very interested in learning the protocols that govern the operations of SOCU and how these are triggered.
The January 10 Sunday Stabroek editorial set out in great detail many of the issues that need to be addressed and it is worth restating some of these and others pertaining to the NICIL probe and the role of the GDF. Despite the fact that the APNU+AFC government had made NICIL a prime target for investigation when its two constituents were in the opposition and then immediately on assuming office launched an audit of it, the administration appeared uncertain about how to proceed once the report by the auditor, Anand Goolsarran was submitted. It sat on the report for weeks and then perhaps as a result of public comment embarked on a flurry of activity which included the seizure of files, surveillance and the sending off of the two top officers on leave. Why didn’t the administration, on entering office, immediately send the NICIL Head, Mr Brassington on leave for the purposes of conducting a detailed audit and immediately secure all of the files in the possession of the agency? It would have been the most sensible thing to do. It certainly would have obviated the subsequent cloak and dagger operations of which Sergeant Pyle’s was the most regrettable. Instead, Mr Brassington was kept guessing as to the government’s actions and no attempt was made by the government to take control of files which might have been crucial to the audit. The failure to take immediate control of NICIL for the purposes of the investigation underlines the lack of coherent thinking in the government on how these very weighty audits must be prosecuted.
Another issue that has to be confronted is procedural rigidity and rectitude in these investigations. For many years now, there have been grave doubts as to whether the Guyana Police Force has the requisite skills to be able to magisterially prosecute white collar crime. The Police were recently asked about this and maintained that they were well capable of conducting these investigations and building cases. The back and forth between the police and the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions on the files relating to former Minister of the Public Service, Jennifer Westford may say differently. In the case of the SOCU probe, why weren’t members of the police force used to gather information, intercept files or trail possible suspects. Surely this is bread and butter police work and not some sophisticated counter-intelligence operation.
It would more than likely be that SOCU/ACP James secured the services of Sergeant Pyle by virtue of the former’s decades-old connections with the GDF. He was far more familiar and perhaps comfortable with his previous associations. So instead of seeking support from the police force and clearance for the use of personnel for a certain type of operation, SOCU appears to have had gone outside of the police force. Sergeant Pyle may have been properly authorised by the GDF to proceed on the assignment but the manner in which his participation was triggered was procedurally unsound and bespeaks an agency that is untethered to operational rules that it recognises and respects. This cannot continue and is one of the urgent reasons why there must be a clear and definitive declaration on what SOCU did or didn’t do in this operation. From the manner in which the operation was conducted, it would appear that this was not the first such by these operatives. Until the investigation is over, SOCU must be instructed by the Guyana Police Force to desist from engaging in any such exercise until operation protocols have been re-examined and agreed by all parties.
When he was first asked about this operation, President Granger told the media that he didn’t see the need for a wider investigation. He was reported by Stabroek News as saying: “I don’t think it requires a full probe because Sergeant Pyle was on an official mission at the time and it was quite an unfortunate accident in which three persons died so we certainly regret the loss of life but I don’t see there is need for a probe at the present time …once a soldier dies he (the Chief of Staff) will conduct an internal probe and I do believe it is adequate, I don’t know if that has been done. If it has not been done I will certainly ask that that be done but I don’t think it needs to go wider than that”.
While his statement did not rule out a decision by one of the disciplined services for a broader probe, when the President speaks he also does so as Head of State and significantly as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The heft that accompanies his utterances, particularly on sensitive and controversial occurrences like this one can therefore be seen as unhelpful. There is a further complication for President Granger’s government. The Carifesta Avenue operation and the employing of at least one soldier through a yet undefended mechanism is a boon for those critics and politicians who had without any known basis raised alarum about the likelihood of unauthorised intrusions into purely civilian affairs once APNU+AFC was elected to office. The government and the security services by their own lack of care in how this operation was conducted have opened themselves to this accusation and must now work diligently to mitigate this.
The history of the GDF is replete with examples of where its activities improperly intersected with civilian affairs and left deep imprints on the national psyche ranging from allegations surrounding rigged elections to the death of WPA leader Dr Walter Rodney. While these events have been mostly associated with the former PNC, the PPP/C during the tenure of former President Jagdeo also has its own inglorious moments when the army’s Military Criminal Intelligence Department (MCID) was accused of torturing persons with the full knowledge of the government. Prior to the MCID controversy, to the GDF’s credit, it intercepted now imprisoned drug lord Roger Khan inflagrante delicto when he was in the midst of one of his “anti-crime” missions and handed him over to the police. Behind the scenes, the embarrassed Jagdeo administration was no doubt left to contemplate how Khan could resume his “mission”. That event was another example of how the work of the army, during a period of unchecked crime and authorised operations with the police, was callously undermined by the political directorate to the extent that the intercepting army unit was mothballed thereafter.
For all these reasons and more there is a pressing need for the government and its security arms to assure the people of the country that there is no shadowy ‘deep state’ at work here and that all security and intelligence operations being conducted by the state and its officers will conform to an approved framework founded in the law and that all of the relevant officers are seized of its inviolability.
