Minister Rohee’s announcement that the government has agreed to change the name of the police in Guyana from the Guyana Police Force to the Guyana Police Service was greeted by some of my drinking colleagues with much hilarity. Not being au fait with the genesis or intention of this change, these persons instinctively concluded that the proposed change was nothing more than another PPP/C attempt to take the Guyanese people for a ride.
This kind of negative popular knee jerk reaction to government pronouncements is not new, says a great deal about how our political relations are developing and does not bode well for the future. However, although a longstanding supporter of the intended change, what surprised me is that during the course of the discourse I began to agree with my companions.
Taken at face value, the change of a word does not mean much. There is nothing magical about the word ‘service’ that will make the police begin to act more sensibly and humanely. And as my colleagues did not fail to point out, Barbados is undoubtedly one of the most orderly societies in our region and its police are still referred to as a ‘force.’ Indeed, in the wrong environment ‘service’ can also become just as problematical as ‘force’ and instead of being interpreted as ‘service’ to the people of Guyana, can become ‘service’ to the government, the PPP/C or self?
Even though taken generally, there is truth in the above contentions, in defence of the change I pointed out that Mr. Rohee was not the originator of the change of name, which has been a long- standing suggestion and may even be one of the recommendations to be found in the report of the 2003 Disciplined Forces Commission.
Moreover, in our context where there is a widespread belief that the police operate in an heavy-handed fashion, focusing their attention on the ‘service’ they are required to provide to the population rather than on their duty as enforcers of the law may not be a bad thing.
However, as our discussion progressed, it occurred to me that for this concept of ‘service’ to have its intended value, it must find a home in a new political/administrative ethos: the existence of new personal and group operational codes or mind-sets in which the national leadership accepts a broader understanding of security and projects more reasonable and genteel approaches. The problem is that nothing I understand about our country suggests that any such new leadership departures are on the horizon.
The change to ‘service’ is more likely an opportunistic political compromise and will turn out to be essentially an exercise in futility. Indeed, I believe that the manner in which the government has handled the announcement of the Security Sector Reform strategy gives much credence to this contention.
The physical security of its people must be the first call on the resources of any country, even if today security is viewed as human security – a concern for the physical, economical and cultural wellbeing of a people. The government has claimed that security is its major concern and all Guyanese have indicated their support for some kind of security plan. Before the plan was announced the parliamentary opposition, without whose support the strategy will not yield the desired results, had voiced its no confidence in Minister Rohee and now claims that it will have nothing to do with a security strategy that comes under his purview.
Since the regime believes that national security is of paramount importance, how responsible was it to make Minister Rohee its point man for the strategy?
Even if the regime does not want to remove Minister Rohee, should it not have, and perhaps still should, seek some other avenue of introducing this policy which it claims is so vital to the national interest but cannot succeed without opposition support?
A few years ago, the government created a Security Sector Reform Secretariat and even appointed a Coordinator for Security Sector Reform within the Office of the President. If our security is so important could it not have utilised this establishment to introduce its strategy and thereby remove some of the angst from this central issue? Indeed, Leader of the Opposition Mr. David Granger has recently pointed to this kind of compromise with his claim that he intends to request that the Prime Minister lay the strategy in the National Assembly for consideration.
In these circumstances, the government cannot avoid the widespread suspicion that it sent Mr. Rohee forward with its strategy at this time in an attempt to embarrass the opposition and is jeopardising the security of the nation for blatant political ends.
While both the government and the opposition have responsibility for national management, the primary responsibility for governing is that of the executive. Thus, rather than putting the opposition on the hook by an act that appears to be holding the nation to ransom, i.e. have Minister Rohee or continue with a decrepit security system; the regime may have put the noose round its own neck!
Quite apart for the above, although we all support security sector reform, one should note that there are different conceptions of reform and that this also could have an impact on whether the notion of ‘service’ becomes meaningful. For example, a few years ago, a huge quarrel erupted between the British and Guyanese governments which led to the British withdrawal of its ₤4.9M Security Sector Reform Action Plan grant, although both sides claimed that they wanted reform. Indeed, the British claim appeared to have been that while they intended a holistic approach to reform, the regime wanted to concentrate on police enforcement.
If this was true and the approach of this new strategy reflects what our government intended, this again would make nonsense of a change of name from ‘force’ to ‘service.’
In passing, the minister told us that this new strategy and plan was financed by the Inter- American Development Bank and was very expensive. As I understand it, the British intervention was to be financed by a grant. Important questions, therefore, revolve around the nature and financing of the current plan; for example, how different and better is it to what the British were prepared to support?
