It would be an error of epic proportions if the Government of Guyana were to allow the recent discovery of what a section of the media has described as a “rudimentary submarine” in the Waini region to pass without the fullest possible disclosure, including an enlightening public discourse on the implications of the discovery for our national security.
The truth is that the development has laid bare the highly disturbing vulnerability of the Republic to external forces that have challenged the inviolability of our territorial integrity, and that is not the sort of challenge that any responsible state can ignore. By the same token the Government of Guyana has a responsibility to fully inform the citizenry of the details of this development since, in the final analysis, the protection of the country’s territorial integrity is inextricably bound up with the preparedness of the people to embrace the outlook of the government. So that the last thing that we really need is to have this matter treated as though it were some kind of state secret since that approach is bound to give rise to suggestions and insinuations that would do damage to the government’s image.
Before we even begin to probe any deeper into the considerable speculation that the vessel is connected with Guyana’s tie-in with the international drug trade, we must first get our minds around the fact that a 60ft by 22ft vessel of some measure of sophistication could be built – presumably over a reasonable period of time – within our territorial jurisdiction and in the Waini region of all places, without, it seems, the authorities having any clue whatsoever. What this does is to put into perspective the disturbing uncertainties associated with our territorial integrity and the physical security of our country. Indeed, we are now surely entitled to ask what else that threatens the sovereignty of our country does not transpire within our borders from time to time, perhaps even with monotonous regularity and without the powers that be being any the wiser.
In this context the claim which has been made by the United States and other countries that Guyana is a major hemispheric trans-shipment point for drugs, (a claim that many ordinary Guyanese may well have taken lightly on the grounds that we see no visible evidence of this) is now worth taking deadly seriously in the light of the submersible development.
And if areas of our vast and overwhelmingly under-policed territory have probably become critical hubs for the trans-shipment of drugs, to what extent might sections of our population and our security forces also be tied in with the drug trade?
To seek answers to these questions is really to try to determine how secure we are as a nation and whether or not we are on the way to becoming another Colombia or Mexico where drug lords have long carved out their own considerable stakes in those societies.
The paradox, of course, is that for years, decades, those who rule have appeared unmindful of our security vulnerabilities, particularly in so far as interior security is concerned. Over the years we may have worked up a head of steam over the territorial claims of some of our neighbours. We have, however, been far less mindful of the insidious threat posed by the logistical requirements of the drug trade.
Who knows whether our delinquency in the matter of securing parts of our territory may not have amounted to a surrendering of sovereignty to people whose motives contrast sharply with our own.
One has to wonder whether the unearthing of the rudimentary submarine might now make the powers that be more amenable to embracing the Western support which we sorely need in tackling the manifold security problems that plague us, or whether we will continue to assert our ‘sovereign’ status and persist with our claims of outside interference in circumstances where our sovereignty may long have been compromised through the sustained use of our territory as a trans-shipment point for drugs.
Indeed, and in the circumstances, our protestations about outside intervention are no more than overwhelming expressions of political insecurity since, apart from the fact that the Government of Guyana simply lacks the material capacity to roll back the tide of major crime, particularly ‘big time’ drug crime in the country, there are those who believe that it also lacks the will, to do so.
Nor – as was intimated in this newspaper’s editorial on Sunday – will the problem be solved by tinkering with a Guyana Police Force which – for a host of oft-stated reasons – is a simply not up to discharging its responsibilities in a manner that inspires anything even remotely resembling public confidence.
The point should be made too that we are no longer in the least bit fooled by the kind of political one-upmanship that causes the discovery of the ‘vessel’ to become cause for the customary cat-sparring amongst the political parties, since those noises have nothing to do with the resolution of the problem anyway.
As with so many other things the brouhaha that will most likely arise out of the Waini discovery will do no more than distract from the need to close ranks – as a nation, that is – around the issue of national security.
One imagines that the recent discovery will trigger some sort of investigatory initiative though, if this was indeed an externally engineered exercise, one wonders just how far the local authorities are likely to get (at least on their own) in that pursuit. It would seem that there is a case here for seeking external support and if such support is forthcoming the government would be well advised to submerge its contrived pride and its rhetoric since the Waini submersible incident could open the door to helping plug a gaping and dangerous hole in this country’s notoriously porous security tapestry.
