The killing of Dr Olato Sam on Friday morning has focused public attention yet again on the danger which lurks on our streets, the prevalence of guns in the society and the continued inability of the Guyana Police Force to keep citizens safe. Dr Sam was one of those individuals whom the nation could ill afford to lose. A release from the Ministry of Education described him as an education specialist who had served as Chief Education Officer. He had worked with others, it said, developing education policy, and most recently had been engaged on a plan to address violence in schools. He also lectured in Education at the University of Guyana, sat on various commissions and boards and was a member of the Caricom task force on teacher education and the establishment of teaching councils. This was all in addition to collaborating with the UN here in relation to curriculum development and the protection of Indigenous knowledge. Dr Sam was also the Secretary-General of the Unesco National Commission.
And yet here he was, in the early hours of Friday morning relaxing in the company of friends outside a bar in Plaisance, when two heedless men, lacking any sense of moral responsibility began a fight on the other side of the street. In and of itself that might not have been a problem except that they started firing guns, or a gun – the police have not said which – and one of the bullets hit Dr Sam.
The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry was the first to have its say, and while it did not mention Dr Sam, nevertheless that killing is probably the one which prompted their expression of concern about the level of crime in Guyana. Making reference to the GPF’s claim that official statistics showed a decline in crime, they dismissed that as reflecting “an underreporting in criminal perpetration.” And that is the problem: the police cite a reduction, especially where serious crime is concerned, but this is at odds with what ordinary citizens perceive to be the reality. They do not feel safe on the streets, and they know very well that Dr Sam’s case is not an isolated one. A particular consideration for the Chamber is that if the situation continues it will make the environment unconducive to doing business.
Mr Timothy Tucker, a former President of the Chamber was also scathing in his remarks about the crime situation, mentioning a remigrant from Venezuela who was killed by bicycle bandits. We reported him on his Facebook page as saying that while the police have recorded a decline in crime, the residents of Lamaha Gardens “complain to the top cop that they can’t walk day or night.” He quoted the Commissioner’s response as being: “stats show different and … we have to accept that we will be subjected to depressed communities.” If that is really how he responded, then there is some basis for Mr Tucker’s comment that there was need for a change of leadership in the Police Force.
And what are the statistics the Force has been citing? Giving the annual announcement of the figures in December last year Commander of Georgetown Simon McBean said his division had recorded a 30% decrease in serious crime for 2022, and where murders were concerned, that reduction came close to 50%. This decline was also reflected at the national level with Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum adding that last year’s figure of 122 was the third lowest in the last ten years. In addition, he was quoted as saying, “our detection and clear-up rate for murder is at an all-time high, that is 80.3 per cent.” As long as the residents of Lamaha Gardens, say, are afraid to go out on the road in their area, or a citizen cannot have a quiet drink with his friends in Plaisance without getting shot, then not only will the public not be impressed, as said earlier they will not be persuaded by the statistics either.
There is an additional question in relation to what the police are encompassing within the term ‘murder’. Many of those whom ordinary citizens feel should be charged with murder are charged with manslaughter, or else are prepared to plead guilty to manslaughter if the murder charge is dropped. In other words, the public would have a better idea of what is going on if the police gave homicide statistics, rather than just the figures for murder.
Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn has not always been totally consistent in his remarks, although during the Budget debate earlier this year he echoed what the police had said. Of course that is a very political context where inevitably he will emphasize government achievements in the security sector. He described the government approach to crime and violence as more “emphatic”, and told the National Assembly that robbery, serious crime, murder and violence had decreased by 20 per cent between 2015 and 2022. All that can be said about that is, once again, even if it is so, the public hasn’t really noticed; they still feel unsafe. He went on to talk about the provision of new vehicles, new training, new efforts in respect of crime and violence and “the prevention and mitigation of that.”
At other times he has been less indulgent of the GPF, and the Georgetown Chamber referred to the fact he had recently called on the police to clamp down on the “lawless malaise existing in daily life.” Lawlessness creates the conditions under which crime flourishes, said the Chamber. No law-abiding citizen would deny that. We no longer live in a rule-governed society, and the breakdown of law and order and the failure to show respect for others is apparent even at the level of the schools.
What Parliament was given to understand during the Budget was that the government had allocated $58.6 billion towards public safety and security for 2023. Exactly what proportion of this was earmarked for the police per se, was not reported, but presumably it would have been a substantial sum. The problem is that while adequate funding for the Force is essential if it is to be effective, it also needs to be free of corruption, well trained, well led, and professional not political. It also needs to take on board the more technical dimensions of investigative work which are common elsewhere.
While the Crime Chief may vaunt the Force’s overall clearance rate, no one knows what percentage of these cases result in a conviction, and just how many of them fail at the level of the court on account of poor investigative work on the part of the police. Furthermore, while Minister Benn adverted to the increase in seizures of narcotics, that is probably explained by the fact that there are simply more narcotics around. The importation of some kinds of guns is connected to the narcotics trade, although there may be a separate trade where hand guns are concerned.
Whatever the case, the GPF in its statistics has had nothing to say about to what extent it has been able to interdict illegal firearms coming into the country, although it has said it had seized illegal firearms off the streets. Unless it can tackle the importation routes, however, it will have little impact on the problem. One presumes that Dr Sam was killed with an illegal weapon, and if so, he would not be the first victim. There are in any case too many guns around, and not all of them are illegal.
The police have not provided the homicide statistics for this year, but for the average member of the public killings by guns and knives seem anything but a rare occurrence. Just to name a few: there was Yoel Valenzuela from Timehri who died last month; Anthony Charles of Leopold Street, another victim of gun crime, as was Delon Josiah of Perseverance who was killed earlier this year; then there was Gerald Sobers who was shot in the neck early last month; as well as Surujpaul Etwaroo of Good Hope; Leon Comb of Kilcoy; and Delon Waterman who was stabbed in July. This is just a sample and among others, does not include killings in a family context or the murder of partners.
At the beginning of 2023 following a spate of murders, President Irfaan Ali said he was awaiting a full report from the police concerning the execution-style killings that had taken place since the start of the year. Nothing more has been heard from him on that subject.
