No fear in the absence of a scare?

May 15, 2014 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Permit me to request clarity, or at best arrive at some understanding of the modus operandi of the Bomb Squad in Guyana.
On page 13 of the Kaieteur News (May 13, 2014), I read under the heading ‘Fight for Town Clerk chair, bomb scare end City Hall meeting’. This was not the part that jolted me to my senses. Instead, the conclusion of the report stated thus “Both purported Town Clerks were later seen giving directions as Bomb Squad ranks engaged the City Secretaries on which areas should be searched”.
Needless to say I had to read, re-read, and shake my head indeed. If there was indeed a bomb scare, is evacuation not an immediate priority? Bomb squad officials operate under the known technique—locate, diagnose, render safe, and make safe to investigate.
Hopefully, the Bomb Squad was summoned to City Hall following the report of a bomb. If this holds true, then it leaves the more astute mind to wonder, what form did this report take, and how much information was given that the Squad was forced to seek help from the secretaries regarding which areas should be searched?.
Heaven forbid, but the areas that should have been immediately searched are as follows: craniums, intellect, and last but not least, vision. Had there really been a bomb the lives of so many people would have been destroyed, merely due to the zany behaviour of the Bomb Squad. Please pardon my dwindling cognition or seemingly moronic display, but I am left with the impression that the Secretaries were better bomb sleuths than the Bomb Squad personnel, which caused the latter to seek advice from them.
What level of knowledge did the secretaries possess that placed them in a superior position to be able to identify the likely areas that should be searched. What determining factors were in play? Did they not fear for their lives at any point during the search session?
This entire comedy of errors seems so much like a run-off of ‘The Keystone Cops’. Nevertheless, while the whole incident beggars description, at the selfsame time it does cry out for a departmental revision of evacuation procedures in the event of a bomb threat, provision for diagnosis of the threat, and division of mice and men, where members of the bomb squad show that they are men with the nerve to protect those whom they serve. Public awareness campaigns are also indicated and urgently needed, as time has proven that it is better to be safe than sorry.
Yvonne Sam

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