Why are more people being killed and wounded by illegal firearms each year? This year’s murder toll, reported last week by head of the Guyana Police Force Criminal Investigations Department Mr Seelall Persaud, confirmed fears that the public safety situation is deteriorating. The lethal use of illegal firearms, gang-related assaults and organised narcotics-trafficking combined to push the rate for general crime up by thirty-six per cent, and for serious crimes up by nine per cent, above last year’s levels.

Up to mid-November, there had been 139 reported murders, or an average of about three murders per week. Of these, more than a quarter have been ‘execution-murders’ – the customary punishment for delinquency in the narcotics trade – and seven per cent have been ‘robbery-murders.’ On average, there are now about two robberies every day in which firearms are used. Handguns accounted for 38.7 per cent of murders for the year.

Where do illegal handguns come from? By mid-November, the police had recovered 126 illegal firearms, 77 (or 61 per cent) of which were manufactured in Brazil with which Guyana has a 1,120 km, largely unmonitored border. Commissioner of Police Mr Henry Greene confessed that the force had failed to stop the gun trade saying, “We have always admitted having a difficulty in penetrating the gun group – those who are bringing weapons into this country and trading in weapons.” The public wants to know what the force intends to do about it. Certainly, gunrunning will not stop of its own accord.

Predictably, the worst effects of the surge in serious crime have been the more than three dozen murders in the ‘big empty’ spaces of the absurdly undermanned and unmanageable ‘E’ and ‘F’ divisions. Why the police force persists in keeping this huge 152,000 km² area comprising 70 per cent of the national territory under the command of its lowest-ranking divisional commander is difficult to comprehend. Mr Seelall Persaud himself acknowledged that the “arrangements that we had previously to police the interior cannot work now.”

It is evident that the most likely supply routes for illegal weapons pass through the same ‘E’ and ‘F’ divisions from Brazil. It is also clear that the security forces’ clumsy responses to the Bartica and Lindo Creek massacres revealed serious operational and logistical deficiencies in their capability.  Gun crimes on the coastland cannot be controlled without remodelling the architecture and infrastructure of the police in the hinterland.

The police used to blame the notorious Agricola-Buxton gang for a number of armed robberies. But it is now clear that previously unknown gangs have been operating with astonishing efficiency and technical coordination to attack vulnerable targets. Gangs of riverine pirates also continue their depredations undeterred on the waterways. These new gangs have contributed to what the police call “a very high level of violence and fear” in society. But, is there a policy to inhibit the growth of gangs?

Despite the deteriorating security situation, the Minister of Home Affairs Mr Clement Rohee has revealed no plan to counter the challenge of criminal violence. Why is the minister so slow to fully implement the National Drug Strategy Master Plan that was intended to fight narco-trafficking? Why can’t the minister reorganise the archaic police divisional structure to deal with hinterland crime, or provide the police marine unit with fastboats to pursue pirates, or recruit personnel to bring the police force up to its required establishment levels, or implement stricter border surveillance to staunch the influx of illegal weapons?

While the minister dawdles, the country will continue to bleed from the wounds inflicted by the criminal violence that has been triggered by guns, gangs and drugs.