We are back in the season of noisy festivals. They are not supposed to be noisy. Diwali, for example, is the festival of lights, not of firecrackers, and similarly the message of Christmas cannot be sought in the blast of a squib. Yet the interval between Diwali and New Year represents the months in the calendar that everyone who still has intact hearing and a desire for a peaceful life has come to dread. Fireworks are not a harmless indulgence. They can cause injury; they can cause fires; they can upset small children and the elderly; they can aggravate all kinds of health conditions; they can make trips out on the road hazardous if youths are throwing bangers; and they can absolutely terrify domestic animals. In general they deny ordinary citizens a right to an undisturbed existence in their own homes, and the truly religious among us the right to celebrate their holy days in an atmosphere reflective of their beliefs.
Every year the police dutifully warn us about the dangers of fireworks and the fact that they can cause serious bodily harm, and every year end citizens’ ears are assailed by the same old cacophony. Anyone would think that firecrackers and their ilk were legal, but the GPF is at equal pains to tell us that they are not. In some years Eve Leary has assumed a grave law-enforcement tone, announcing a zero tolerance policy for explosive devices. “Persons who are caught selling or found in possession thereof will be prosecuted …” reads a typical warning from 2019.
Most years, too, the police arrest vendors, generally in the markets, selling firecrackers and other items of that ilk, but those are usually one-off raids and it is likely that whatever was seized was soon replaced. The inefficacy of such efforts was demonstrated in a major way in February this year when Parika Market went up in flames. The causal chain of events left plenty blame to be apportioned, but one factor in the story was the presence of a stall selling fireworks. Since a contractor was welding the roof at the time, and contrary to instructions the vendors had not vacated the premises, the inevitable happened. Sparks from the welding ignited flammable materials in the market below, including fireworks, which as everyone knows are highly combustible.
Apparently in this country we have to learn the same lesson over and over again. It is not the first time that fires have been caused as a consequence of the presence of firecrackers and their relatives, although usually on nothing like this scale. The last time there was a major conflagration of this kind was in the nineteenth century, when Charlestown was razed to the ground because of the presence of fireworks which in those days were manufactured by the Chinese. At least those manufacturers had the excuse there were no laws against them at the time; now we have laws but they are simply not enforced.
Every now and then the police get lucky and stop a vehicle or apprehend an individual and they are found to be in possession of firecrackers. Earlier this week, for example, a police patrol in Sheet Anchor in East Canje stopped a car and questioned the driver about whether he had anything illegal in his vehicle. He denied that he had, but when the ranks searched it they found several boxes of squibs and firecrackers.
The fact that he was in Berbice supplied a possible hint about the origin of the fireworks. Some years ago the authorities actually did manage to give us a relatively quiet extended season by concentrating efforts on the points of entry into the country. Or, to be more precise, one point of entry. At that time most of the fireworks came across the Corentyne from Suriname, and by a process of diligence Customs and the police were able to interdict the vast majority of the importations. These were brought across, not in bulk, but in fairly modest quantities transported by a considerable number of individuals. Why the exercise was never repeated is simply not known.
In the case of locations such as Lethem, for instance, where there have been many complaints about firecrackers in the past, the provenance of these devices is likely to be Brazil. Lethem, however, is a relatively small township, so there is no excuse for the failure of the police to stamp out the use of fireworks there. It is possible, that some of the squibs, etc, originating in Brazil find their way to Georgetown or Linden, but one might have thought that this would not have been in the same quantity as those coming from Suriname. If the police do not already know how fireworks are imported and where the main points of entry are, then it is about time they did some intelligence work to find out.
Of course the police often say in their releases that Regional Commanders have been reminded to maintain and sustain efforts directed at preventing the importation of firecrackers. The evidence indicates, however, that over the past years those efforts, whatever they were, constituted an exercise in futility. As long as there is no systematic programme in place to prevent importation, then the Force is faced with the impossible task of trying to seize all the fireworks in Georgetown and the urbanised areas. They simply will not be able to make a dent in the situation via that method, because they do not have the manpower. It is a viable proposition for them to do some cleaning up in the markets, or wherever, after they are preventing most of the importation at the ports, but if they don’t have a plan for the latter, then anything else they do is just an exercise in PR.
Fireworks should not be in private hands in this country; they should be let off by public agencies such as the GDF on specified occasions like New Year, Republic, Independence or whatever, and should not be handled by irresponsible civilians to torture law-abiding citizens, children, the sick and the elderly. This is not to forget the poor dogs and cats, among other animals, whose hearing is so much more sensitive than ours. Commissioner (ag) Clifton Hicken has not distinguished himself in any particular department since he was appointed by President Irfaan Ali. Diwali has come and gone, but will he now abandon his diffidence and endeavour to devise a workable plan which would allow the bulk of the populace as well as the animals who live among us, a peaceful end of year?
