The Reverend Patrick Doolichand must be the first man ever in the history of this country to lose his job over a prayer. As the Police Force chaplain he had confessed to the “sins” of the Force at the recent annual officers’ conference, and had been dismissed not long thereafter. All men and women of the cloth must have been disconcerted to learn that they might not be guaranteed freedom of speech in prayers about sin if these offended important personages – probably another first in this country if it is so.
Last Wednesday the GPF announced that Reverend Doolichand would be replaced by former Assistant Commissioner of Police, Reverend Eric Bassant. Did this mean, the bemused public wondered, that in the context of police functions invocations to the Almighty would now be subject to censorship? Would Reverend Bassant be required to submit his prayers to the hierarchy for clearance before delivering them to the serried ranks of blue? Who would have thought that Guyana’s Finest had suddenly become so sensitive that they could not withstand the stress of being required to listen to a brief recitation of their sins?
There was one particularly sour note in the Reverend Doolichand’s dismissal letter, and that was the statement that he was being probed for an alleged financial crime. This has the hallmarks of a tactic used by officials of authoritarian regimes in particular, but which is also not unknown in this country. As it was the Reverend told this newspaper that the allegation was a “total lie”, and that, “At no time, let me get this very clear: At no time I had any investigation.” He went on to say that this was a shock, since he volunteered his service and had never accepted monetary payment from the Police Force. “I am not being paid. I refuse to take money,” he said.
Perhaps Reverend Doolichand should have included misrepresentation or failure to check assumptions in his brief listing of ‘sins’. In the letter revoking his appointment as chaplain, it had been stated that the President, Ministers of Government and other distinguished guests had expressed “utter disgust at such repugnant, fallacious and inappropriate utterances” in the course of a “dignified” and “professional” activity. Fortunately, not everyone had felt “utter disgust” at the “utterances”, no matter how ‘dignified’ and ‘professional’ the circumstances, and so hours after this letter had been circulated sanity intervened in the form of President Irfaan Ali, who rescued the Force from its own absurdities.
We reported that the GPF withdrew its decision after the President told Commissioner Nigel Hoppie that he had no difficulty with the prayer, and on the contrary rather liked it, and that Reverend Doolichand should remain the Chaplain. The Reverend himself said to this newspaper that after the letter had gone out, the President had reached out to him and informed him that he was still the GPF Chaplain. The Force then had no option but to admit that President Ali had not complained about the prayer, and to state that the decision to revoke the Reverend’s appointment had been “reviewed” and “withdrawn”. It was an embarrassing retreat which made the upper echelons of the organisation appear both incompetent and seriously lacking in judgement.
So what was it in the Reverend Doolichand’s prayer which so discombobulated the most senior ranks of the Guyana Police Force? He ‘confessed’ racism, corruption, bribery, injustice, disunity and fragmentation, and towards the end of his prayer said: “Any house that is divided will fall … the Guyana Police Force is no exception, and if there is not unity and togetherness in this Force, [it] will continue to face major issues.”
Most of these ‘sins’ the police have heard many times before, particularly where corruption and bribery are concerned because they have had a great deal of public exposure. The Force would be hard put to it to deny that this occurs on a large scale, the Traffic Department alone being notorious. Really substantial bribes, however, are more likely to be associated with drugs, which are a major issue nowadays, as are the guns associated with them. Even where police money is concerned there are problems. As Mr Hoppie sat listening to the ‘confession’, for example, he would have known that an audit into the GPF’s Finance Department had found $300 million missing. This newspaper was given to understand that money had been signed off to ranks for overtime work, but they had never received it, while in other cases millions had been allocated for purchases which cannot be accounted for.
The Reverend also listed injustice, which takes all kinds of forms. It is something which a significant number of citizens have direct experience of, and the public in general knows all about. One thing to be said in the Force’s favour in this regard relates to an extreme expression of this ‘sin’, specifically extra-judicial killings, the number of which has dramatically decreased. But all the rest goes on apace, such as missing files, bullying of citizens, wrongful charges and arrests, beatings and the like.
Perhaps what also greatly upset the senior officers was the matter of disunity and fragmentation, since that spoke directly to their management of the Force.
The problem from the public’s point of view is that it is not really clear what form these take at the present time, and what all the causes are, although some of them are known. A corrupt force, for example, will inevitably be disunited, since all its members will not be committed to the principles of the organisation, and will not be working towards a common goal, ie confronting crime and making the country safe for citizens.
Then there is the pernicious influence of politics on the Force, which has not redounded to its professionalism. A large part of the problem lies in the fact that the police are heavily African dominated, and that all attempts to balance the GPF racially have so far failed. Given the political polarisation in this society, inevitably one side sees the Force as being part of its extended constituency, while the other simply does not trust it. This has led to the undermining of the body and at some points the cultivation of groups within it who respond to one official or another.
The upper hierarchy probably didn’t take too kindly to the inclusion of racism in the Reverend’s list, and while that is an accusation less commonly voiced, it is far from being unheard of either. It is within the context of the ethnic character of the police that these assertions come, although it is not something the Force has ever conceded. However, in a society like this one the public has a good grasp of what the issues are, and the Commissioner and his senior officers will not be allowed to pretend that the problem doesn’t exist.
The Guyanese public does not care what prayers are offered up at annual conferences; they do care about crime, and particularly violent crime, above all else. In case the Commissioner hadn’t noticed, the inhabitants of this country feel very unsafe, with very good reason given the scale of the banditry. And if a chaplain does list the ‘sins’ of the Police Force in the course of an official function, they would be happy if its hierarchy would put its mind to addressing some of these, rather than castigating the pastor.
