By its very nature the offering of a hefty reward by the state for the capture of criminals is an admission of defeat. It connotes an acceptance that on their own the security forces are unable to snare the serious criminals. It is also by implication an acceptance that the usual networks through which information on these criminals is gleaned by the security forces from the public and the underground are dysfunctional.
This is why President Jagdeo’s announcement that the reward of $53M to be split between the informant – one third – and the security forces who were involved in the tracking down and killing of `Fineman’ and `Skinny’ is disturbing.
Whoever the informant was is owed a debt of gratitude in addition to the reward. The timing of the intervention by the informant is interesting. The large reward for information on `Fineman’ had been on the table for many months but there had been no takers. Something had to have happened in the recent weeks before the confrontation at Timehri and Kuru Kururu. It is not insignificant that just days before this deadly clash President Jagdeo had said that help from overseas was being provided in the search for the elusive `Fineman’.
Whatever the clincher, what President Jagdeo’s government is yet to convince the public of is that progress is being made in the reforming of the police force so that the reigns of criminals of the repute of `Fineman’ don’t begin much less last for years. That is the nub of the matter.
`Fineman’ is assuredly dead but prior to him there was a number of his ilk going back to 2002 and the bloody whirlwinds that accompanied their campaigns need no recounting. What has been done to change the operational posture of the police force in particular and to sharpen its discipline and incorruptibility? Those are challenges which this government would be hard-pressed to answer.
Yet, for eliminating the threat that these two men posed, something the security forces had shown great incompetence in accomplishing for a number of years, the state is doling out this large sum of money to them. It is a most ill-advised step; particularly since the killings have accomplished nothing but putting these two men out of commission.
There is yet no convincing testimony in court or the public about who killed the former Minister of Agriculture, Satyadeow Sawh and his family, about who slaughtered 11 men, women and children at Lusignan, about who slaughtered 12 men including three policemen at Bartica and about who killed eight men at the Lindo Creek mining camp. There are allegations that `Fineman’ was involved in all of these outrages but yet no conclusive testimony. Even if he were taken alive there would have been no guarantee that he would have provided any elucidation of the three massacres this year. And given the vagaries of the court system it could have been many years before he had his day in court. Yet that is the basis on which the rule of law is founded and what separates this society even if less thickly these days from the law of jungle.
There is yet to be since 2002, a compelling case in the courts of a serious crimes accused being prosecuted to the fullest. It just hasn’t happened. So there is nothing to be happy about over the reward to the security forces though without a doubt there will be very many happy servicemen.
Apart from the dead end to the `Fineman’ investigation, it is hard to ignore the fact that the security forces conducted a futile search for him for five or six years. Yet, in a matter of weeks, after his shocking escape from the Sparendaam police station, `Skinny’ was able to link up with `Fineman’. It says a lot about the suppleness of the criminal network and on the other hand about the failings of the security forces and their poor intelligence gathering capacity.
And while `Fineman’ has been buried, the key questions about the Lindo Creek atrocity remain. Could it have been `Fineman’ even if it was he who had fled Christmas Falls? There is yet no convincing answer to Lindo Creek. The ballistic information is not credible and the DNA evidence from the site will only help families with closure. The one alleged eyewitness/suspect that the police said they have has remained elusive. And now there is this puzzling bit of information about the use of the phone of one of the Lindo Creek victims, Dax Arokium, up to very recently.
This points tantalizingly in the direction of someone who may have answers and the police should spare no effort to trawl through records and investigate those who are connected with this number.
There remains a cloud of suspicion over the security forces as it relates to Lindo Creek and it hasn’t been lifted by the elimination of the `Fineman’ threat. The paying out of the reward money to the security forces may please some but it has not improved the condition of law and order here.
