The smell of tear smoke discharged by the police at villagers demonstrating against poor security; the sound of ministers of the government being abused by members of the public; the sight of a bulldozer stuck in the soft mud in the village backlands; the shambles of a minister’s meeting with irate farmers; and the scene in the National Assembly of a cabinet minister intemperately remonstrating with the speaker will, sadly, remain some of the tragi-comical memories of what has now become a month of mourning for this country.
These are a few of the images that show how badly the misery that surrounded the tragedy of the Lusignan killings has been clumsily mismanaged. They also show how easily the sorrow of relatives of the victims of the shootings and the sympathy of the population at large could be overwhelmed by administrative arrogance and official bungling. Worst of all, they also show why fresh atrocities such as the most recent Bartica killings could recur.
The Lusignan killings, ironically, have emerged as a divisive event. Rather than becoming a point of convergence around which a grieving nation could rally in solidarity and resolve to prevent a recurrence, they were widened into a deep gulf dividing the administration’s fierce behaviour from friendly public opinion and the counsel of concerned citizens. The paranoid approach to dealing with the current security crisis, however, was not entirely unexpected. It is rooted in the way the administration has managed, or rather mismanaged, public safety both on the coastland and in the hinterland throughout the years of troubles.
Refusal to draft and adopt a coherent national security strategy; refusal to communicate with representative regional and neighbourhood local government organs; refusal to consider the points of view of members of civil society; refusal to collaborate with political parties; refusal to conduct inquiries into previous serious mass murders; refusal to implement wholeheartedly the reasonable recommendations of the Disciplined Forces Commission and other reports; and refusal to resolve the conditions which cause criminal violence, especially among the young, have all contributed to the current crisis.
The security operation on the East Coast Demerara, for example, hastily launched on the day after the killings, boasted of what was called an “immediate success” with the killing of two men. Typically, the deaths will not be investigated further yet it is expected that villagers will cooperate with the same security forces. Similarly, the administration’s decision to clear the dense vegetation and cane fields behind those villages, whether necessary or not, was made more difficult by the dubious decision to disregard the office of the chairman of the Demerara-Mahaica Region. This contributed in part to the confusion surrounding the collapse in communication about compensation arrangements for the farmers affected by the land clearing exercise.
Government officials and officers of the security forces, assuming perhaps that public opinion would go along with whatever the administration decided, did not attempt to lay the social and psychological groundwork for its offensive operation which was bound to seriously disrupt the livelihood of thousands of persons. Officials also initially tended to view the security operation largely as a technical issue of bulldozing acres of farms and arresting scores of suspects, divorced from its social and political context. For most, however, the technical aspect turned out to be more important than the broader political objective of stability and security and has left a legacy of distrust and resentment.
There have been calls for the resumption of the execution of convicts and many might be convinced that the only way to fight fire is with more and more fire to deal with this crisis. But there has been no shortage of shooting by all sides over the years and the culture of killing has already devalued human life. The current operation on the coastland, like the dozen previous operations, should convince policy-makers that the short-term application of force alone is not the answer. It must be combined with long-term measures that address the causes of crime. No matter how many suspects are shot dead, fresh recruits seem to spring up to replace them.
But now that the terror has spread to the near hinterland, the administration must be aware that it really does need a holistic national security plan. It needs the support of the public at large – including civil society, the corporate community, political parties and the population – not just a few selected community policing groups here and there. There needs to be a new approach to public safety. No one is convinced that the present methodology has ever worked or could ever make this country safe. If Lusignan was not evidence enough, Bartica shows quite clearly that this administration does not have a clue about countering the challenge of criminal violence in this country.
Responding to recent calls by opposition political parties for the administration to present a comprehensive security plan, the president said, “It’s not the new plan on paper we need. We need the physical people, more people in the security forces. We need better intelligence but intelligence just doesn’t drop from the sky.” True.
Shooting, beating and detaining suspects without charge, without their having been found guilty of anything, diminishes rather than enhances the chance of obtaining good intelligence. The current troubles can be defeated only with good police and intelligence work.
