For a Professional Police Force

Sep 15, 2013 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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In condemning the brutal slaying of young businessman Zulficar Namdar, the Muslim Youth Organisation (MYO) noted: “the recent upsurge in criminality bears a sinister likeness in the modus operandi of the 2002/2003 crime wave where efforts were made to destabilise our country.” I agree, but also believe that the overtly political attacks of 2002/2003 germinated in the robberies and slaughter of 30 Indian-Guyanese (mostly businessmen) in 1998/99. We hear once again calls for the police to “do their job”.
The scholar Cynthia Enloe, who focused on the phenomena of ethnic conflict in the seventies (she taught at UG for a while) wrote: “The resolution of inter-ethnic conflict demands that armies and police forces be examined not as neutral instruments that cope with problems, but as potential causes of the problems as well.”
Over the last three decades, I have always looked at the tribulations of our disciplined forces from this perspective. It is a political perspective. One can, of course, look at those forces (or any other phenomena) from any other number of angles, but we have to ask ourselves what is our objective in conducting the examination. The objective of my analysis and comments is to confront our most fundamental structural problem and bring stability with justice in Guyana.
The elemental cause of our endemic conflict has been a political one based on the ethnic cleavages in our society. While each state institution will have to confront and deal with the area of national concern for which it was organized, we can never lose sight of the relation of the institution to the underlying political conflict. If we ignore this nexus, we ignore the reflexive stance in which these institutions are viewed by the citizenry at large: State institutions are, by definition, institutions through which the power of the state is exercised, and are flashpoints for social struggle.
Enloe went on to state, “Any lasting resolution of ethnic conflict may require that the distribution of political authority and influence in the society be basically reordered and that, as part of that reordering, the police and military be ethnically reconstituted at the top and the bottom. Resolution of inter-ethnic conflict will be tenuous if the security that is achieved is merely state security and not security for each of the state’s resident communities.”
In Guyana, the Disciplined forces could not even secure state security: the unsolved murder of a sitting Minister only a few years ago is now not even a cause for comment.
Few objective analysts would argue that our Police Force has served the interests of our people well over its history, beginning in 1839. The problem is not necessarily with the individuals who comprise the Force (even though any organisation will have its share of bad apples) but with the nature of the force itself.
Our Police Force was constituted as a force to pacify, first the African ex-slaves and then the Indentured Indians. Its organization, modus operandi and its ethos were all geared towards keeping the “natives” in their place. I ask anyone: “what has changed in those areas since independence?” The problematic with such a lack of professionalism is the leaders of the force will inevitably resist civilian control.
Unfortunately in Guyana we only complain when our group is facing the fire – literally. Our calls from the late eighties for the Disciplined Forces to be professionalised were interpreted as partisan – and anti-PNC, since the forces by then had been made appendages to that regime. Our calls as ROAR for the forces to be professionalised by “streamlining, decentralising and balancing them” after the January 12th 1997 ethnic riots were again seen in that light. Ironically, events had unfortunately unfolded in accordance with the predictions of our analysis.
Most focused only on the “balancing” recommendation – disregarding the wider recommendations for professionalisation – many of which have been incorporated in later official (domestic and foreign) recommendations – most gathering dust. During the 1998/99 carnage, Indian-Guyanese cried foul. After the Police Target Squad swung into action, and many young Africans were killed, African-Guyanese cried foul and some organised an African Guyanese Armed Resistance (AGAR). There were deadly reactions to the last onslaught – all of which betrayed a total lack of confidence in the Police Force.
Our central contention, however, is that we cannot only focus on the tasks of the police and ignore its fundamental flaws that impact on our major ethnic security dilemmas. This goes to the very survival of our state.
I repeat the warning of Enloe: “The resolution of inter-ethnic conflict demands that armies and police forces be examined not as neutral instruments that cope with problems, but as potential causes of the problems as well.”
Our country needs a Police Force, but the Police Force as presently constituted and constructed cannot satisfy that need. It has become part of the problem. We repeat our call to all our fellow citizens: let us not lose sight of the forest for the trees. Let us use the present imbroglio to further the cause of all Guyana. Let us work to create a professional Police Force.

 

 

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