Dear Editor,
It didn’t take long to follow on the heels of what I call the mayhem in Mon Repos. Everybody is coming out, and many are up in arms, against the besieged Guyana Police Force (GPF). For sure, it gives all of us a ready scapegoat to tie to a post and flog to our heart’s content. I will be bold enough to say that we are beating the wrong horse which, of course, is sure to bring down wrath on heads like mine. My response is simple: do your best.
We do the same stupid thing (and it is) by engaging in the same self-reassuring exercises that comforts us that we are onto something, and we are doing something about it. I dare again to say that we are doing the wrong thing, picking the wrong target, and making bigger fools of ourselves, by digging our ostrich heads deeper in the cesspool that is Guyana. We are hesitant or fearful or too fraudulent in calling out those who should be really taken aimed at, which is the government of the day, and so happens to be the PPP one.
Our sordid history is that we have lived long and unhappily with the GPF being used by the old PNC Governments of the last century, past PPP governments post 1992, even the last PNC Government from 2015 (to a lesser extent, admittedly), and now this current PPP Government in full flow in the close to last two years. We have had GPF Special Branch, GPF Black clothes, highly hailed GPF crimefighters, and some suspected GPF phantom squads, some dead and many alive, but all free to walk around here without fear of prosecution. Not even the Opposition speaks of that or them.
Those segments of the GPF have been let loose on Guyanese-mostly law abiding, some not-at different times in our chaotic past by different governments.
The point should have registered by now that the GPF has been at the beck and call of one government after another to do jobs dictated by those administrations. Beck and call of government I repeat, and for both legal and extralegal actions. Therefore, it boggles the mind that Guyanese, be they in PPP ranks or Opposition ranks, jump all over the GPF for its perceived ineptitudes and failures. When will Guyanese learn, retain some sense? Perhaps, I would assert that the more appropriate question is: when will they face the facts honestly and speak to truth openly?
The situation at Mon Repos was history repeating itself on a lesser scale. The GPF, in the sum of its wisdom, could not have been so dumb, so flatfooted, so lethargic, so lacking in basic street sense, so devoid of tactical mobility, among numerous other shortcomings, that Mon Repos occurred. Or better yet, a Mon Repos was allowed to repeat itself. Come on, people, please don’t insult me by asking me to join the beat up the police party. To put this in a different way, any small group of Guyanese on the march (or standstill) breathes too hard (or pass some gas in public), and the GPF is out in force, especially if matters don’t feel right, or look right. Bear in mind, I beg, that such handfuls of Guyanese are no Visigoths or Vandals out to disturb the peace, but peaceful Guyanese raising their voice about things that disturb. The point is that the GPF is on the job and very watchful. Its members know what is going on, what is coming down, what came down from whom, and are usually in a state of readiness. Let those Guyanese who push some special interest get out of hand, or bat a hostile eyelid, and the GPF is poised to swarm. Do I need to say more?
I go my way by leaving this little offering at the altar of more righteous Guyanese brethren (or self-appointed superiors). We have seen, know, concluded how sensitive institutions of this sorry State have been subverted for this or that purpose, how they have been unleashed or withheld for what could best benefit Guyanese. I point to the EPA and the State-owned media, as two quick examples, and ask if we are still blaming the GPF for the fiasco and farce that unfolded at Mon Repos.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
