Dear Editor,
On Father’s Day, a miner with an alleged shady past was gunned down in his Nandy Park home as he slept with his girlfriend and their baby son. It would have been dismissed as just another routine gun-related news story, except for the fact that the ‘miracle’ baby was struck by six bullets in the torso and survived. The girlfriend also survived being shot in her legs, but even if, to the gunmen, these two unintended targets were basic ‘collateral damage’, to the wider society, this was further evidence of an out-of-control gun crimes situation that begged for a comprehensive crime-fighting strategy from this new government and a police force that just underwent a top-level reshuffling.
Then shortly after midnight last Saturday, the owner of the Multiplex Mall on Regent Street was gunned down, in what appeared to be either a hit or a failed abduction try at his home on West Coast Demerara, (‘Regent St mall owner riddled with bullets’, SN, July 6). How can this latest gun-related murder not spur the government and police to stop being curious observers of gun crimes and start being furious stoppers of gun crimes?
The proliferation of gun crimes in Guyana has reached such unprecedented heights that a dark and disturbing picture has finally emerged of Guyana as an inadvertent safe-haven for gun-toting, demented criminals, even as innocent Guyanese recoil in horror, the police react in hopelessness and the government refuses to help. Oops! Did I say the new government, which I support, refuses to help? Yes, I did! This gun crime situation pre-dated the advent of this coalition regime, so it is not as though the post May 11 gun crimes are new. But where is the gun eradication strategy? I have no problem with the new Public Security Minister going after quality of life crimes associated with late night alcohol binging or the government asking the British to re-consider financing and assisting with the professional reformation of the police force, but there is a major gun crisis in Guyana that demands an immediate resolution, not political platitudes and ambiguous attitudes.
What exactly is the point of the police force celebrating its 176th anniversary with pomp and ceremony while criminals are overrunning the country and literally mocking the police? The PPP regime spent hundreds of millions of dollars on all sorts of so-called police reforms, new vehicles and even a useless SWAT team, and yet we wake up every day, whether in Guyana or abroad, and peruse the Guyana dailies only to be met with these persistent gun-related murders. There needs to be a comprehensive strategic approach to this debilitating gun crisis, and it starts with the government, from which all policies governing plans, programmes and practices must flow. The Public Security Minister needs to gather all divisional heads for an emergency meeting to ascertain what each needs over the next three months to deal with gun crimes in their areas. Once that is determined, the short-term focus turns to strategy, which should include intelligence gathering and the constant visible presence of the police patrolling communities. Besides the meeting with the divisional heads, the Public Security Minister needs to meet with civil society stakeholders to obtain their feedback or input for ideas on tackling this scourge.
Such a meeting should see the presence of at least one or two high-level representatives of the Guyana Defence Force to assure stakeholders that the army stands ready to work with the police to reclaim our streets and wider society from gun-toting, demented criminal elements. The role of civil society stakeholders could lead to the availing of resources to allow for mobile command units to be located for periods of time in communities then moved around to strategic locations, and even along roads that may be used by getaway criminals. In short, the combination of an increase in the presence of police on streets and in communities, and input from civil society could go a long way towards reducing and eventually eliminating the gun scourge. It has to be a nationwide effort, which brings me to the aforementioned importance of intelligence gathering as part of the short-term strategy to deal with gun crimes. During the 2002-03 crime spree, when the police force appeared overwhelmed and the Jagdeo regime refused to ask Caricom for assistance, it was the Phantom Squad, financed by drug baron, Roger Khan, which went after gun-toting criminal elements. In that exercise, though illegal in its execution, intelligence gathering played a significant role.
Khan took money from his drug proceeds to pay informants to rat out the criminals, and it seemed to have paid off as certain wanted men were killed. Let me repeat: the exercise was illegal, but the information gathering strategy was effective, until the Phantom Squad started killing ‘soft targets’ and Khan’s drug competitors, which prompted informant George Bacchus to squeal and which led to his execution. If the coalition government does not want to pay for a gun buy-back exercise to help rid the streets of guns, then it has to be willing to pay informants good money to locate criminal gangs and their guns.
No, there is no need for the brutal gunning down of suspects under murky circumstances, but if society is abreast of efforts to address the gun crisis, folks will not cry ‘police brutality’ if suspects refuse to peacefully part with their illegal weapons. While society will hold this coalition regime accountable if it fails to solve this gun crisis, a Jagdeo-led PPP can easily capitalize on it by suggesting it already knows how to deal with gun-toting criminal elements.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
