GUYANA NEEDS TO REVAMP ITS SECURITY APPARATUS

Feb 21, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The question that should be asked is not why the government is moving to establish a central intelligence agency, but why only now.
The intelligence community has failed this nation and not just in relation to the domestic terrorism and crime, but also in relation to aggression from our neighbours.
It took a confession emanating out of Suriname for the local authorities to know that in 1990, the authorities in that country had contemplated aggressive actions against our country.
But that failing can be excused, because Guyana does not have the resources or the ability to plant spies in other countries.
The Americans have that capability. The Americans have always had intelligence operatives throughout the world, including in Guyana.
These are not always American citizens. In many instances, locals are recruited to undertake the gathering of intelligence, and these locals often include persons who may not be even trained in intelligence gathering, but are individuals who are strategically placed and have access to sources of valuable information.
The information that foreign countries seek about Guyana is not often restricted to military and political developments.
These countries are primarily interested in protecting their national interests and the investments of their citizens and firms, and thus would seek out sources that can provide such information.
This country is teeming with individuals who are selling out their country for the gratitude of the United States.
The United States, for example, knew long before hand that Burnham wanted to nationalize the bauxite industry and that the bauxite levy that he was proposing was a means to give him leverage over the Americans during the negotiating process.
But the Americans, as recent declassified documents are revealing, knew Burnham’s every move and thus were able to neutralize him and force him to pay extremely generous compensation to Reynolds.
Guyana, however, is not America, and our intelligence needs are mainly limited to crime-prevention. Unfortunately, the intelligence community has failed this country.
These failures have been painful to the Guyanese people and have led to such tragedies as the jailbreak in 2002, the crime wave between that year and 2008, the assassination of prominent individuals in our society, the Lusignan, Bartica and Lindo Creek massacres and last year’s terrorist attacks on the Ministry of Health and the Supreme Court.
The security services have recovered from these assaults, and inroads have been made which have seen a diminution of certain threats.
However, the period of the crime wave following the Mash Day 2002 jailbreak has exposed the weakness of the intelligence community and the security services.
Serious questions need to be asked as to whether the intelligence community was underperforming during that period or whether what was lacking was the willingness to share and act on certain intelligence gathered.
It is amazing that no sooner was there, for example, a change in leadership in both the police and the army, that intelligence gathering seems to have improved, so much so that the authorities were able to finally round up the ‘Fineman’ gang which had done so much damage.
The government indicating that it has footage of the then gunmen operating out of Buxton and wanted photographs published in the press, suggests strongly that the gang was penetrated and the identities of those who formed part of the gang known.
But what is still unanswered is why the security services were unable earlier to prevent a small gang of men holed up in a small village from inflicting such terror and pain on this country.
What needs to be asked is whether there were persons within the security services who were knowledgeable about certain things and deliberately withheld this information from the authorities.
This is all the more pertinent considering that a recent report in the Stabroek News suggested that the military knew about certain things in relation to David Clarke but had kept these under wraps.
The government must therefore answer as to its kid glove approach to the security sector in the past.
Had it taken a more serious approach to this issue, a great many tragedies could have been avoided in this country.
There is justifiable reason for the establishment of a new national intelligence agency, separate from that of the existing intelligence infrastructure.
However, the government is not saying that what is being created is a new intelligence arm.
It is indicating that what is being done is the construction of a building to coordinate the various intelligence gathering agencies.
The government needs to stop playing games. There is no reason for any defensiveness when it comes to establishing intelligence arms.
The future security of Guyana is going to hinge on intelligence gathering and so there is a need to modernize the existing framework.
But also, given the failures of the past, it is now necessary for an entire revamp of the intelligence network.
There certainly should be no shame or timidity in moving in this direction.

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