Political sophisticates

Dec 03, 2008 Editorial

The killing of the three bandits from East Coast of Demerara on the Cromarty foreshore of Berbice has produced several clues to the puzzle behind the wave of attacks by violent gunmen that has devastated our country over the last several years. But it has also raised several questions about the nature of our response to the existential national security threat.
For one, it has shed some light on the nexus between the members of the gang who may have been motivated more by the lure of loot and those who fell for the line of (in the words of Mr Eusi Kwayana) the “political sophisticated leadership” who entered Buxton from the outside with a litany of grievances to entice bright but alienated young men into their web of terror.
There has been widespread consternation from those who knew Gibson and Chichester personally, after it was revealed beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were armed criminals who could callously torture and kill a fisherman – Boodhoo – in cold blood.
These two young men had been raised by parents who were headmasters – quite middle class by Guyanese standards – and had completed high school, with Gibson even attending UG. They both had exposure to the army and its training but both had to leave under less than optimum conditions.
They were perfect grist for the machinations of those who wanted to make political points against the government through the new technology of terrorism. In all the other theatres of terrorism, including the recent explosion in Mumbai, we see the same pattern and profile of the perpetrators of the violence and their controllers.
The controllers exploit the idealism of youth about grievances, real or perceived, perpetrated against their group – generally religious or ethnic in the modern milieu. They reject the political system and its processes as being “futile and a waste of time” and convince the youths that violence is the only recourse.
This sophism, dubbed “la trahison des clercs” or “the treason of the learned” by the French, is clothed in the language of “marginalisation” and “racism” in Guyana. It received a favourable hearing far beyond the circle of gullible youth and we can be certain that the “political sophisticates” are in the wings, waiting to pull the strings controlling still unexposed (or potential) recruits for their deadly attacks against the forces of law and order.
And that brings us to another piece of the puzzle that is clearer today – the still missing AK-47s that were stolen from the army’s stocks. Right after that near fatal breach of our security apparatus, senior officials of our disciplined forces launched an initiative for the recovery of the weapons that pointed everywhere but towards the bandits from which a dozen or so of the missing thirty-three have all been seized. Gibson was the latest bandit to have had an army AK-47 in his possession. Do we still have to speculate where the others are?
Finally, we have to once again raise the vexed question of the capabilities of our disciplined forces to confront the threat of terrorism that will certainly not disappear of its own volition. In this vein, we have to distinguish between anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism measures. In the former regimen we have passed laws, heightened our awareness of the threat, etc., and this is all to the good, but in the latter – the actual mechanisms to take on the terrorists – there is still much to be done. For example, it appears that GuySuCo’s Berbice security forces were alerted to some suspicious characters but did not pass this on as a matter of procedure to authorities. Is there such a coordination of intelligence policy in place?
It was purely a matter of fortuity, not the result of intelligence or planning that the latest sortie by the bandits was stymied. Corporal Glasgow, who unfortunately was killed in the firefight, must be given a special commendation (posthumously) for bravery above and beyond the call of duty, because he was not trained to take on the very well trained and superiorly armed bandits. While in the Cromarty episode it might not have mattered, where is the SWAT team that we were promised since 2002 to deal with the terror threat?

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