Dear Editor,
There has been much noise made about the true intent of the marauding band that has caused mayhem and destruction and great fear across Guyana in the last few weeks. Guyana is by no means unique in having armed groups causing mayhem as the last two decades have seen a proliferation of terrorists, insurgents, militias, and criminal organizations all over the world. This is the anarchy that Robert Kaplan wrote of in his bestseller The Coming Anarchy. These groups present serious security challenges to nation states.
Most Guyanese had chosen to forget the exhibition of force and precision that was witnessed by the residents of Agricola and lower East Bank of Demerara in 2006. What label do we put to the persons in this group(s) especially when they themselves have not communicated with anyone as to their true intentions? Many descriptions have been used interchangeably in the last few weeks: criminals, terrorists, sycophants, animals, murderers, gunmen, and insurgents. There is no doubt in the minds of anyone that there is a group of men, and possibly women, engaged in high profile criminal activity which includes murders of innocents and robbery. But is there a larger agenda at work here?
These men from all accounts wear camouflage uniforms, are very adept in the use of military assault weapons and have access to other military grade materiel, move and act with military discipline, have confronted the security forces on several occasions including attacking police headquarters and other stations, and have the ability to disperse and melt into the environment at will and lie undetected for weeks and months on end. These activities certainly bear the characteristics of organized criminals as well as that of guerrilla warriors. The authors Douglas Blaufarb and George Tanham describe the activities of guerrillas as such:
“Guerrillas strive to fight only at times and places of their choosing. These naturally, will be calculated to achieve surprise and thus to improve the odds. It follows that the guerrilla will rely on stealth, on disguise, and deception. Moreover, if attacked, he will not stand and fight but has the ability to disperse when being pursued and then to reassemble and strike a surprise blow when the pressure is off.” Activities are divided into three phases. “These are, first, development of an organizational base, second, the launching of the armed struggle in the form of guerrilla warfare (in an urban and/or rural setting), and third the climactic phase, which sees a shift from the guerrilla to aggressive, mobile warfare with the insurgents seeking to confront their enemies in a conventional way.”
To date however they have never declared that they are pursuing a political agenda though their activities which partly resemble those of a guerrilla force certainly shout to us loudly that they are.
We should however remember that escapee Andrew Douglas had appeared on national television and declared himself a “freedom fighter”. It is important therefore to establish whether this group is an off-shoot of the Douglas gang even though the major players are now dead, and whether “Fineman” has also adopted Douglas’ ideology. In dealing with this type of activity there are two useful and important adages that everyone should bear in mind. The first is that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” The second is that “It takes a terrorist to catch a terrorist”. We are not going to have easy times ahead.
We therefore have to be very careful in ascribing labels to a group especially where they themselves have not given themselves a name. This point was forcefully driven home in Somalia in 1993 when the United States military underestimated the strength and importance of Farrah Aideed by calling him a “war lord” and placing a US$25,000 bounty on his head. In doing so they failed to respect the facts that he was a former Ambassador of Somalia to India, was the author of several books, and had been appointed war chief by his tribe to face the imminent threat that was perceived. The US Special Forces paid a heavy price. It is for this reason that it is difficult to prescribe the types of strategies and tactics to deploy in the absence of an objective assessment of what the government and nation face. It is easy to call for helicopters and Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) or specialist weapns and more troops, but these will mean nothing in the absence of an objective assessment and the political will to fashion an appropriate strategy.
Insurgencies take root and thrive where there are governments that are deemed incompetent and corrupt, and place continued enjoyment of power ahead of making changes and reforms that would negate the insurgent’s appeal. Most experts agree that a viable insurgency has three defining characteristics:
1. It is organized as seen from signs of planning, a hierarchy of command, and a distribution of function within its ranks.
2. It relies on armed force to advance its cause. This armed force is usually deployed in the countryside.
3. The activity is not a brief affair, but lasts for years.
There is no doubt that the state of Guyana is in a much weakened condition; perhaps the weakest it has ever been since Independence in 1966. In the seminal work The State, War, and the State of War Kalevi J. Holsti has identified three structural characteristics of weak states:
1. The absence of vertical legitimacy, meaning that substantial “segments of the state do not accord the state, or its rulers, authority.
2. The absence of horizontal legitimacy. Communities within states have no formal and complementary relationship with each other. Rather, these communities largely autonomous shape the “nature of politics and authority structures” of the state. Therefore, dominant communities have a greater say at the expense of other communities.
3. The over personalization of the state around a person, party, or house of royalty.
If it is the first signs of an insurgency that we face then we have a serious problem and cannot avoid addressing the socio-political causes that gave rise to it. If in fact we are lucky not to have to deal with an emerging insurgent force then we need to seize the opportunity and address frontally the socio-political situation including a review of the system of governance under which we are organized. We simply do not have choices either way.
The problem therefore cannot be solved if there is a refusal by stakeholders to address the larger issue of the system of governance under which we are organized and managed, and vice versa, by stakeholders seeking to string together a raft of recommendations which skirt around the central issue of governance by calling for piecemeal reforms. What we have to admit is that this constitutional construct under which we all function, has failed Guyana and to the extent that we politicians and civil society stake holders continue to tinker and pretend, then we will continue to fail and will be left with no alternative but to apologise to the citizenry for our failure over the last five decades.
Yours faithfully,
Raphael Trotman
