JAGDEO, PPP/C MUST BEAR FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR CRIMINAL VIOLENCE, THE PERVASIVE INFLUENCE NARCO TRAFFICKERS

Nov 06, 2011 APNU Column

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As is typical of the PPP, whenever it is confronted with uncomfortable truth, they seek to create diversions.
Bharrat Jagdeo, speaking at a PPP Rally at Bartica, falsely accused the PNCR of having “had its hands in the Buxton… and the Bartica killings” during the troubles. He repeated the wild slander invented to scare voters in the run-up to the 2006 elections that, if “that party were to get into power, guns would be given to the criminals.”
APNU is aware that President Bharrat Jagdeo of attempting to evade his own culpability for 12 years of mismanagement of the country’s security. However, we insist that the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic Administration must bear full responsibility for the high rate of armed robberies, banditry, murder and piracy plaguing the country today.
APNU reminds the public and the PPP/C that almost every year since Mr Jagdeo became President, in 1999, the US Department of State, through its annual reports – International Narcotics Control Strategy; Human Rights Practices; and Trafficking in Persons – has criticised his Administration for its failure to ensure human safety and public security.
It is a well-known fact that the PPP/C Administration deliberately derailed its own National Drug Strategy Master Plan and the DfID-funded ₤ 4.9M Security Sector Reform Action Plan.
The Administration brazenly pretended that it was serious about combating crime by establishing the Steering Committee of the National Consultation on Crime, the Border and National Security Committee and the Disciplined Forces Commission – creating the false impression that it intended to solve the national security crisis.
However, the fact is that the recommendations of these committees and commission have been routinely ignored.
The need for comprehensive security sector reform became evident in the ‘Troubles’ which erupted in the aftermath of the breakout of the gang of five from the Georgetown Prison on 23rd February 2002. The response of the PPP/C Administration, however, was calculated to permit the emergence of several ‘phantom gangs’ as an alternative form of policing. It was those gangs which were responsible for an untold number of murders and massacres.
It is also a well-known fact that since 2000, uniformed members of the Guyana Police Force’s Target Special Squad had been implicated in shootings of so-called suspects and in acting as enforcers for criminals involved in narcotics-trafficking and the US Embassy visa scandal. The PPP/C has never investigated these reports.
Jairam Ronald Gajraj – then Minister of Home Affairs – was the subject of a Commission of Inquiry into his alleged involvement in directing the death squads which were responsible for extra-judicial killings. His US visa was suspended. It is also widely known that allegations have been made in a US court that Leslie Ramsammy, the Minister of Health, had signed documents to facilitate the acquisition of electronic eavesdropping equipment by a known criminal gang. The Minister denied the allegations.
As a result of the deception of the Administration, the lethal use of illegal firearms, gang-related assaults and organised narcotics-trafficking pushed up the rate for serious crimes.  There are now about two armed robberies on average every day and an average of about three murders per week.
Other grave threats to human security were reported in the allegations of torture against the Guyana Defence Force, Guyana Police Force and Guyana Prison Service which are still to be investigated by an impartial commission. The PPP/C has refused to investigate the massacres in Lusignan, Bartica and Lindo Creek.
APNU is convinced that the PPP/C Administration has no intention of investigating the causes of serious crimes in Guyana. It has no intention of reforming the Guyana Police Force to enable it to control gun-running, narco-trafficking and smuggling.
THE SHAMELESS ATTACK ON FORMER GPF COMMISSIONER FELIX
The strong response by APNU forced the PPP to employ yet another diversion. This time they chose to attack former Commissioner of the Guyana Police Force, Mr Winston Felix.
However, the Jagdeo Regime needs to explain:
*  Why it failed to appoint Mr Felix to the post of Commissioner in 2001 but had to be forced to appoint him in 2004?
* Why it acted in concert with Roger Khan, and his cohorts in the GPF, to bug Commissioner Felix’s phone and office to further his criminal activities?
* Why it starved the Guyana Police Force of funds and vital resources while facilitating the equipping of Roger Khan and his personal army of assassins?
*   Why it granted the massive forestry concession and housing lands to Roger Khan to further his criminal activities and were accessories to the elimination of their own Minister by Roger Khan when he refused to sign off on the land deal?

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