The Bandits’ Briefing/Meeting is the Summary of the Minutes of my own sometimes – creative mind.
Again, you can decide how much is accurate, even actually true. (Just study the details of the brutal daily crimes of home invasions, physical assaults and alleged-sometimes verifiable-backgrounds of the criminal perpetrators.)
The five fellows gathered under the home of the one whose father owned the Auto-Repair shop in the village. (That shop’s owner was skilful at re-spraying, producing fake licence plates and such “wrong things”.) The five pretended to be concentrating on games of dominoes but they were actually planning their next major hit in a nearby village.
Tony was the leader of this gang –sort of. He dropped out from High School after his Police Father put him out of the home over repeated misdemeanours. Raj was the mechanic’s son – the youngest at 20 years but extremely skilful and devious. Raj was determined to accumulate wealth without work. He admired corrupt, “successful” politicians in the country – and elsewhere. Rocky was in for the ride. Twice in and out of prison he too had decided on criminality as a career. One-handed Jerry invited sympathy because of the perceived handicap but at 33 he was a key player in this Bandits’ Lair. Sonny was the son of an Attorney-at-Law but another drop-out, get-rich-quick type from lawful society. His friends even nick-named him “Legal”. His father now lived in a Caribbean island but kept in touch. Sonny also procured weapons – on hire.
The robbery, almost murder?
The now usual reasons/cause for these fellows’ embrace of violent crime apply.
The cosmetic nature of their religious faiths – the band, the fashion, the repetitive “sermons” – failed them, as did absentee parenting. In two cases, their teachers were “studying” too often to attend to their daily educational needs. Add to all those social failures, the television series, the internet distractions and the smart-phones servings of mischief and you get the (mass) production of dis-oriented, rudderless youth just ripe for either recruitment into or self-employment in crime.
“Beepat in the nex village got e rich family coming in from New York for a funeral at de weekend”, Tony announced. “Details”, demanded Raj. He got them from both Tony and “Legal” Sonny. “Dey arriving at 9.30 in de nite”; “Dey using Fullah minibus”; “Four a dem staying at Beepat an some at e aunty who own de grocery and internet café.” “Two lil girls in de group”.
They planned for about 45 minutes. They would rent a car for two days. They would also utilize two CG Bikes bought with loot from previous robberies and housed in the workshop. Beepat, who secretly hated his father’s well-off “American” relatives, was a key player in the proposed robbery. Weapons were no problem. The police station had no ready transportation and a blackout was announced for that village for specific periods.
The fellows quickly perfected timings, arrivals, ambush, assistance from mini-bus driver and the Beepat family member.
Now, dear readers, that you have an idea – just the bare bones – of the robbers’ character-backgrounds, their apparatus and accomplices, their motives and intended victims – the elements of an armed robbery to happen, what safe-guards, precautions and pre-emptive actions would you and your host-household take when overseas relatives are expected? From airport arrival to the event they’re coming for? Discuss…
Making Love, Then Violence
Around the table at our Watering Hole of Stress-Relief, Discussion and Opinion, three of the fellows recently sought to persuade me to accept an alleged phenomenon of young men’s behaviour, which they all claimed was one primary reason for the now-familiar violence against young women.
I should not have been aghast at the matured fellows’ theory, but I was. Because it went thus: Guyanese young women – say 17 to 30 – are turning to older fellows or to multiple partners (of both sexes) because too many of today’s young men – 20 to 30? – are not schooled in, or incapable of proper Love-Making!
Poor me. Though a few young ladies do hint that scenario to me, I can’t yet accept it to be so widespread to the extent that it leads to the frustrated battering of the disappointed ladies. But my pals did not let up! They claimed that there is “evidence” that those young males who are not versed in romantic fore-play are also (prematurely) impotent. What!? And even though the sexual-enhancement pills are meant for my own Older Boys age-group, the younger men are now abusing these “medications” with abandon – and side effects.
So when they suspect that their still unsatisfied female partners are silently laughing, texting others, or seeking alternatives, the result is violence. Beats me. Sadly. What do you think? Discuss…
You must ponder
*1) On sugar – Why am I at the point of now accepting that Guysuco need a very new innovative Board of Directors and the active input of the workers’ representatives to save our sugar industry, before it is eventually down-sized?
Let us citizens find ways to tell the government that that sector does not belong to the Administration or the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) solely. Because any abrupt downfall or closure of sugar will reverberate socially and economically around all of us. I sense that it is incompetence which is one factor in this potential debacle. From Skeldon to Enmore to Wales, one hears of management deficits, obvious to both workers and patriotic Opposition.
Government, please listen to Vieira, EB John, Roopnaraine, Clive Thomas, et al. We have everything to lose!
*2) Quotes from two Kaieteur News columnists: (1) “I know one thing … if this legislation is not passed, Guyana is going to be blacklisted by FATF. But adopting the legislation is only a first. Other crucial measures have to be taken. The legislation is only the enabling framework”.
(2) “When he (Burnham) died, he and anyone close to him didn’t have a house and a swimming pool. Today, Papa Cheddi’s protégés have risen from rags to riches in a supersonic time-frame…”
*2b) I share the view that President Obama is being outfoxed by President Putin, regarding Crimea being annexed by Russia from Ukraine. The West will only try sanctions even as Obama considers internal American political implications. As one Anti-Obama analyst opined: “This American President probably considers the political implications even of the breakfast he uses in the morning.”
*3) Supremely interesting to me: how powerfully former Speaker and PPP Presidential hopeful, Mr Ramkarran, has become the last (analytical) word on that Party. (Y’all know I love the folk proverb: “When yuh own louse bite yuh…”)
Til next week!
(Comments? Allanafenty@yahoo.com)
