The military and Cabinet meetings

Oct 30, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

There is a Freudian touch to the decision of the government to host its Cabinet meetings at Camp Ayanganna, the central military base of the Guyana Defence Force. In any other part of the world, such a decision would have been unthinkable in a democracy.
Even in Venezuela where Hugo Chávez, a former paratrooper, was once President, it would have been a political hot potato, for him to have kept Cabinet meetings at a military location. It is a central tenet of democratic rule that there is civilian oversight over the military. There are concerted efforts made to keep the politics and the military separate, and not to contaminate the two by bringing the military into politics or by politicizing the military.
The APNU-AFC coalition has been walking a dangerous course since it came to office. The government and the bureaucracy have seen an unprecedented level of involvement by ex-military men. A number of Commissions of Inquiries were recently launched, and almost all of them were headed by ex-military personnel.
Two ex-Chiefs of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force are advisers to the government. Military veterans are occupying positions running from heads of law enforcement agencies to security personnel for the government. The level of involvement of veterans in the administration is unprecedented.
It seems as if these days, once there is a decision to be made, the first choice is going to be a military choice. The danger in this mindset is that it could lead to a total militarization of the government.
On the converse side, the projection of veterans into the political limelight could encourage persons to see a military career path as a foothold for involvement in politics. This is the danger which had been previously referred to as the politicization of the military.
The government is aware of all of the criticisms about the participation of the military in government. It has gone to great ends to prove a point; which ironically was never the issue of contention. The government is going overboard to prove that there are ex-military personnel that have civilian skills which can be utilized by the government. That has never been the issue. The government has missed the main core of the arguments which have been made against the military and politics.
The government’s response to the arguments which have been made against the involvement of the military in government has been to demonstrate that veterans have the ability to do government work. It has appointed military veterans to head important commissions of inquiry and to assume headship of important agencies of the State.
It has now taken a step to host Cabinet meetings at the military headquarters at Camp Ayanganna. It is oblivious to the symbolic and real implications of this move. If APNU is so obsessed with the military past of some of its leaders that it does not realize that it is acting almost in Freudian way on decisions, and that its first choices are consistently becoming military choices, then at least the AFC needs to raise some objections to what is taking place.
APNU is now totally seized of a military mindset. If there is someone to be appointed, it is thinking about a veteran. If it has to find somewhere to host a meeting, it is thinking about a military location. On the one hand it is trying to demonstrate that veterans are not without ability and on the other hand it is not looking outside of the military and veterans for skills. It has appointed, for example, a sitting military person to head the organization of national events. That surely would have been a job better suited for a civilian, but even on this front no concession was being made.
The decision of the government to host Cabinet meetings at a military base is unprecedented in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Even the New Jewel Movement in Grenada never did this.
The decision cannot be simply about finding a safe place for hosting of Cabinet records and meetings. It is about a mindset that has developed. It is about the context of a government that has become dependent on the expertise of veterans. It is about a government that is becoming oblivious to the tenet of civilian control of the military. The government has become Freudian in its actions.

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