Dear Editor,
Reference is made to the editorial titled, `Regional Joint Support Team’ (SN June 20). My first reaction, all in one, was: what, what next, and what mischief in mind? Surrounding thoughts follow.
First, gratitude is extended to SN for a comprehensive, eye-opening editorial. It certainly raises tons of questions. About intents and objectives. About rationales underpinning this secret concoction. About the need for such thick secrecy. About the already commenced government dodges, and why the necessity for those, too. Whenever things such as these originate in these suspicious ways, then the sinister is sure to be an integral part of both physical structure and political vision. It alarms.
Editor, it is frightening in what it can cover up; and menacing in what it can deliver. From this early hour, I will boldly call it for what I see and sense it to be: this “Regional Joint Support Team” is nothing but a rehabilitated, irregular force used to regularize (pay keen attention to that verb) what troubles the political mandarins.
It is illuminating as to the lengths which the PPP government will go, the energies that its leaders will spend to come up with this secret remedy to address Guyana’s myriad security loopholes. I heard that magic bullet (pardon) of a word “crime-fighting” and I urge Guyanese to go back to what prevailed here not quite two decades ago, and the legacies left of its handiwork. Crimefighting, it was called. The closest that the SN editorial came to my position is “parallel police force” which is good enough for me, and says a world about the uncertainties and the unsettling nature of this development so suspiciously sneaked into the deliberations of parliament.
Editor, I have said it before, and I say it again: what we have here is not democracy. Not with this degree of secrecy. Now when the authoritarian threatens with such far reaching security mysteries, the implications of which are endless. Since this Regional Joint Support Team has so much to offer, could operate with such strength and freedom, then there is no need to present it to Guyanese with these cunning premeditations, which confirm that there is full awareness that it will not go over well. First, there was the public relations overhaul at the GPF. Now, there is the firepower and potential fallout for the new PR department to spin or secret away.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall