Blame the Government - Targeting illiteracy and growing crime

Blame the Government – Targeting illiteracy and growing crime

Jun 18, 2008 Features / Columnists

Every time the government spends money on education it is spending money on the security of the nation but this fact seems to elude all those who find an opportunity to criticize the government.

The drive now is to reverse the decline in the education system and this includes correcting the growing illiteracy that is haunting the country. At one time, illiteracy was the preserve of the older people, many of whom had no proper access to education but who ensured that their children benefit.

Today, the reverse is evident as people are finding that the younger people are passing through the schools without being able to read or write. It is as if the schools do not exist and this is worrying to the government and it should be to everyone in this country.

But what is more worrying is that some of the young men who are caught up in this situation are now easy recruits for criminal elements. They are becoming the gunmen haunting the nation with serious consequences.

What is even more worrying is that these young men are not confined to the coast in general and to Georgetown in particular. Just a few days ago the people of Linden learnt that some young men who are no more than boys attempted to execute a robbery. One of them was shot and killed and the other surrendered.

This is not the first time that young men have been found to be the criminals of today. After the infamous jailbreak of 2002 the nation suddenly found that young men had become the gunmen and people took this for granted because they had become afraid largely because it was found that the criminals easily got information about who made the reports to the police.

By the time the police began to get a lid on the crime situation the ranks of the young men who had gravitated to a life of crime and who had become gunmen had swollen. Romel Reman was only 21; Sean Gittens was 25; Kwame Pindleton was 25; and some of those killed by the Joint Services who had taken up residence in Buxton were no more than 15 or 16.

When the police caught a group of these young men by surprise it turned out that some of them were no more than children but they were carrying guns and had already killed. This time, after the police caught up with a gang that had been terrorizing people all across the country, it is again found that many of the gunmen are boys.

Otis Fiffee, called Mud Up, was 21 but he had taken up the gun as long as two years before he met his demise in the jungle and the police are finding that more young men are carrying guns. Proof of this came the other night when the police caught up with two members of the Buxton gang. One of them was not even out of his teens.

This 15-year-old has been living in the jungle with the gunmen and he too had been carrying guns. He is now in police custody and he had a frightening tale to tell about his life as a criminal. Another of his young colleagues who died with a much older man identified as Cecil Ramcharran was also a teenager.

The list is long and unless the entire country takes stock of this situation then lawlessness would be the order of the day and no one would be safe because there would be anarchy.

Instead of criticizing the government for every possible action the political opposition would do well to set up programmes for parents, many of whom have shirked their responsibility. Some are going to argue that the conditions are responsible and that the government is to blame because people are finding it difficult to make ends meet.

The government is aware of the hard times but it is quick to point out that today there are more opportunities for poor people. But even then, the poor people of the past were parents who helped their children escape the cycle of poverty by getting an education.

Most of the people who are now leaders in the society grew up poor but they never turned to a life of crime because their parents did not allow them to. There is no reason for the children of poor people to become gunmen and the critics of the government know this.

Should they help the government work with parents rather than blame the government then there would be a safer Guyana.

However, the view is that these critics actually enjoy pointing to the number of young people killed in armed confrontations because they get a chance to jump on their hobby horse of blaming the government.

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