Addressing the members of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) one day after the swearing in of Guyana’s 9th Executive President, Irfaan Ali, Chief of Staff (Ag) Brigadier Godfrey Bess declared that all members of the GDF are “now subjected to the new Commander-in-Chief’s directives.”
“As the Guyana Defence Force has done in the past, it would continue to do now and that is to serve the State and people of Guyana under its Commander-in-Chief, President Dr Irfaan Ali,” the Chief-of-Staff (Ag) proclaimed.
Bess made the address via a Facebook post on Monday morning. In his address he said that the army remains an apolitical national institution and therefore would continue to uphold its noble and exemplary task of service to the Guyanese nation.
The acting Chief of Staff iterated that the loyalty of the force is to the constitution of Guyana and its democratically elected Government, which is now under the leadership of Ali, who is also the Minister of Defence.
Bess committed the resources of the army to the state and asked officers and ranks to execute their service and conduct as mandated by the army’s constitution as they work to defend Guyana’s sovereignty.
“I command your continued allegiance to our country the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and command your delivery of service with the highest level of professionalism,” Bess told ranks in the short address.
Bess was appointed over a month ago to perform the functions of Chief of Staff as Brigadier Patrick West proceeded on pre-retirement leave.
At his swearing in, Bess assured that the army will support a democratically-elected government when asked his opinion about the role of the military in democracy in the hemisphere.
At the time, Guyana had been in an electoral stalemate where APNU+AFC was adamantly refusing to accept that the recount results clearly indicated that it had lost the elections.
