Voters should make crime an issue in this election

Apr 11, 2015 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
We all know the script very well. It is constantly happening almost every other day that our beloved Guyana, based on the size of its population, has one of the highest murder rates in the Caribbean and perhaps the world.
And once again, this grim statistic was just thrown in our faces by the brutal slaying of Courtney Crum-Ewing on March 10, 2015.
With an annual murder rate of around 140 or 18.4 murders per 100,000 people, Guyana is now considered as one of the world’s most violent countries in the hemisphere.
Now, if anyone thinks that we are just beating up on the country, the murder rate in the first two and a half months of the year has reached 34.
In the last seven days, there have been at least four murders which is a significant increase. We wish we were that guru who could tell nation that we definitely know what the cause is of most of the murders in Guyana. Even though we do not have those capabilities, something tells us that the rush to stab someone and shoot them cannot result only from plain robbery, there must be several other root causes that the government have and continue to overlook or grapple with.
In Guyana, as in other countries, murders or homicides are of many different forms, and there are different types of murders such as intentional and/or unlawful death which is purposefully inflicted on a person by another person.
There are reactive and proactive murders. Reactive murders are caused by acts of passion, anger or rage. These are hot-blooded murders which are not usually planned in advance but executed in urgency. Someone gets into a fit and kills another person, sometimes over a trivial issue.
Proactive murders are pre-planned and are carried out with a brutal and deadly ruthlessness. These are cold-blooded murders, and are done by psychopaths.
However, some of the murders in Guyana originated from jealously and socio-economic and political problems. Others take place under the influence of say, drugs and alcohol, and use of other psychotropic substances; schizophrenia, mental illness, and other chemical disorders or malfunctions of the brain. So, in these cases, many murderers carry out their nefarious actions due to diminished responsibilities.
Be that as it may, Guyanese are pretty fed up with the high murder rate. They see the efforts of the Minister of Home Affairs and the police high command as inadequate to stem the flow of the blood of innocent citizens. Frequently, the citizens have begged the police to stop the murder of their fellow citizens. But their impassioned appeals seem to fall on deaf ears as the rate continues to climb rapidly.
Today, murders of all types are very commonplace in Guyana and they have severely hampered the progress and development of the country, and have made the citizens prisoners in their homes and in their communities.
The motives for murders in Guyana can also be anything in this day and age, from a drug deal gone sour to stealing a goat from a man’s backyard. But the common denominator is the possession of a countless number of illegal guns by the criminal element.
Where are these guns coming from? The government has failed miserably over the past several years to stop the flow of illegal guns from infiltrating the country. Unless there is a serious lock-down in the gun and drug trade as a matter of urgency, then Guyana would continue to be in a state of semi-anarchy as the people are held hostage behind metal bars in their homes by armed bandits.
With that said, words cannot express the sadness and money cannot compensate for the hurt and pain felt by the relatives of those murdered. But the electorate has an option not to make race, but crime, one of the main issues in this campaign. They have the choice to vote for the party that they believe would reduce crime and stem the flow of illegal guns into the country. That party in our opinion is the APNU+AFC Alliance, because the PPP has failed to protect the citizens during the past 22 years.
Asquith Rose
Chandra Deolall
Dr. Merle Spencer-Marks

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Voters should make crime an issue in this election

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