WHERE AND WHAT WERE THE POLICIES? (Final instalment)

Sep 22, 2010 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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Instead of coherent crime fighting and national security policies and programmes, the PPPC was content to usurp  and undermine the work of the Guyana Police Force, GPF, and the Judiciary by being judge, jury and executioner.
They failed to enhance the crime fighting capabilities of the GPF. Where are the improved ballistics and modern crime fighting techniques to serve this nation, which is being over-run by criminals of all sorts? With narco-criminals infiltrating every facet of government and being sheltered by Government Ministers who facilitate their militaristic expansion and acquisition of high tech communication equipment, where is the government’s response?
As criminality rocked this nation, the PPPC demonstrated that the  content of an alleged tapped telephone conversation of the Police Commissioner was more important than pursuing the Drug Lord who perpetrated the act.  Winston Felix, the then Commissioner of Police, became expendable when he began to get close to the crime bosses through the joint military operation, code named “Centipede”, launched in March 2006.
Where is the effort to resolve crime in our society under this regime that is prepared to sacrifice Guyanese for political gain in the same way as Minister of Local Government, Kellawan Lall was prepared to let the capital City rot under garbage heaps for political gains?
The reality is that even the announced policies of the PPP never materialised. For example,
* In 2003 the nation was regaled with the New Drug Policy,launched at the Pegasus Hotel with media blitz and in the presence of the Diplomatic Corps. As the familiar character in the stretched out magazine at Christmas season would ask, “A wonder wha happen with the Drug Stategy?”;
* Then there was the Disciplined Services Commission Report, which made more than one hundred and fifty recommendations for the improved performance of the GPF and the Guyana Prison Service.
The report was buried for years in the Committee system of the National Assembly while crime escalated. The report suffered the same fate as the Simonds Report made available to the Government several years before. There is again need for the refrain: “A wonder wha happen with the recommendations of the DSC?”;
·    Then there was the Lusignan massacre and the reluctance of the PPP Administration to have a national consultation and a broad crime fighting Strategy. It took another massacre at Bartica before they could be stimulated into action. The Lindo Creek massacre was buried in a controversy between the Miner, Mr. Arokium and the Commissioner of Police. The National Stakeholder consultation to approve and endorse the National Security Sector Plan held much promise until the media blitz was over.
·    Civil Society soon realised that they were pawns in a big political and diplomatic game. The promised continuous stakeholder consultation never materliased. “A wonder wha eva happen with the Stake holder consultation?”;
The Security Sector Plan, SSP, was announced with the same fanfare as the Drug Strategy Master Plan. More significantly, the British Government committed to providing millions to finance a major part of the SSP. Regrettably, the PPP preferred to lose millions of dollars that could have been applied to ensure the security of Guyanese.
Contrary to the propaganda churned out from the Office of the President at the time, the cancellation by the UK Government of the 4.9 million pounds allocated for the security sector project was clearly the result of bad faith on the part of the Jagdeo Administration, its failure to ensure genuine stakeholder consultation as agreed, its failure to ensure genuine Parliamentary oversight and its refusal to agree to a management model that would ensure transparency in the application of the funds by the donor.
The regime, as they have done on several previous occasions with donor funds, having secured the British loan in principle, sought every means to avoid their obligations and to be in a position to misuse those funds without any real oversight. It is evident that the British were not hood winked.
Again the refrain, “A wonder wha  eva happen to them millions of dollars ……?”;
* The contracting of the Service of New York disgraced Police officer, Kerek, by President Jagdeo, despite  the fact that he received relevant information that should have put him on guard, is demonstrative of his political arrogance.The episode not only embarrassed Guyanese but cost the  taxpayers a sum that was never disclosed;
These are just a few of the so-called PPP policies and activities, which either never materialised  or were totally inappropriate. Yet the PPP administration feels comfortable in blaming others, rather than recognising that their prime constitutional duty is the security of the Guyanese citizen.
CONCLUSION
Despite the propaganda, Buxtonians will long remember the bulldozing of their farm lands, which give them their livelihood and the failure of the Jagdeo Administration to adequately compensate. They will remember the deliberate actions by the security forces, which prevented them over the prolonged period from traversing the backlands to tend their farms.
Today, however, the villagers are insulted that they are lazy and are lectured by Jagdeo about the importance of agriculture. This must be gross disrespect since the Ministry of Agriculture is aware, from the surveys, which were conducted at the time, of the losses suffered by the farmers of that village as a result of the lop-sided policies of the Administration.
The rebuilding of Tiparrary Hall, and the donation of a paltry set of computers, though welcomed, will not compensate for the eye-pass and mayhem, which visited this village. The Jagdeo Administration deliberately chose or failed to effectively and professionally address the problems of this village, but rather used to the situation to denigrate Buxtonians, Africans and the PNCR.
Jagdeo’s use of taxpayers money will not fool Buxtonians who have equal rights under the laws of Guyana. It will not erase the memories of a government that criminalized their village and destroyed their livelihood.
Using Buxton this time to demonstrate good will to Africans for elections will not work even if there are a few who would drink milk off of the table of those who are the architects and engineers of their destruction.

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