There must be a serious effort to save Rupununi youths

Jan 08, 2018 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Our young adults of Lethem and other parts of the Rupununi districts, are now becoming the most vulnerable to trans-border criminal activities, with links to organized gang members of Brazil. While they are influenced very strongly by their coastal counterparts because of the language barrier and their knowledge to the terrain.
Most recently, a gang of young high profile criminals were intercepted by Brazilian authorities, on the frontier, heading back to Guyana, to where they were harboured by known characters of Lethem. One of the fugitives, a female of Boa-Vista, Roraima, was implicated in a murder where she stabbed a female rival gang member fifty-five times.
Furthermore, a Brazilian family with criminal intent is permitted to live at St. Ignatius village, by the village council, where they are suspected to be already involved in a spate of robberies in the surrounding communities.
Our remote airstrips remains poorly monitored, together with our intricate river networks, alongside our porous borders and weak regional security capacity; while Guyana continues to be a transit country for south American cocaine destined for West Africa, Europe, USA, Canada and the Caribbean.
I am not privy to the statistics of the crime data in the “F division” of the Guyana Police, but empirical evidence has proven that there have been a sharp rise in juvenile delinquency and other serious commissions of crime from the year 2000-2017, which are some of the grave concerns to many of us here in the Rupununi.
In recent times there have been some new developments in the discovery of turbo-prop planes by our security forces, in close proximity to our savannahs road networks. This was nothing new to the natives living here, where these clandestine operations were allowed, unhindered under the previous PPP administration.
At present some efforts are being made by our security forces with encouragement from the APNU/AFC government to make a dent on these covert activities that are suspected to be carried out by a well organized crime syndicate.
If we examine the historical records of high profile criminal activities here in Region Nine, we might be able to make an assessment on how serious the situation is; which warrants some very urgent attention as it relates to security threats of the past and with the current state of affairs.
Anyway, we can recall the terrorists acts that were committed on our civilians and policemen while on duty at the Lethem police station, in early January,1969.Then later on followed the hijacking of the Trans/Guyana passenger aircraft from Lethem, the gruesome murder of USA missionaries, Richard and Charlene Hicks at San-Jose, in central Rupununi; the discovery of the large arms cache at Lethem, that remains a mystery to-date; the US$2M in diamonds that was smuggled through the Lethem/Bom-Fin border between Guyana and Brazil, by principals who were licensed by the PPP government to export precious stones.
Our level of preparedness to repulse this current trend of criminal organized network in our region must be stepped up since the advent of oil production will begin in the year of 2020,and with the proposed construction of the Lethem-Linden highway on the agenda, this brings a security challenge to our government.
The state has overall responsibilities to increase the level of safety and security with the reduction of crime and violence which must be maintained for future development of our Lethem-Town, and investment opportunities for our country.
The stakeholders and guardians of the Rupununi districts must come up with a formidable security plan to assist our government in maintaining law and order in our region.
As a matter of fact, the main focus must be on our youths who will be the future leaders of tomorrow and without education and employment, our young people will turn to some other activity to satisfy their needs or wants and this has been a contributory factor to juvenile crime. The destruction of the GNS by the PPP government has had a long term effect on thousands of hopeless youths living in difficult and disadvantaged geographical locations, such as the Rupununi.
Hence, we are calling on our Minister of Public Security, Mr.KemrajRamjattan, to introduce the much touted Citizen Security Strengthening Programme (CSSP)to our region. This was launched in Georgetown in August 2016, and funded by a US$15 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank.
An article in the Kaieteur News, dated Thursday, August 25,2016,made mention that 4,400 school dropouts between the ages of 16 and 25 will be trained and eased into the working world under the Citizen Security Strengthening Programme, for the next four years.
Community action specialist, Mr. Mark Ross, who co-ordinates the programme in the Ministry of Public Security, went on to say, “Each of the 4,400 youths will be provided with a stipend of US$70 a month to cover transportation costs. Also with a promise to provide a level playing field for all the youths from different geographical locations, where 300 of the youths will be given the opportunity to develop their entrepreneurial skills and will be provided with US$1,500 to establish their own business.
One would interpret that Region Nine was never a part of Guyana and does not qualify to be a part of such an initiative.
Apart from the HEYS programme that is co-ordinated by the Ministry of Indigenous People’s Affairs, there is much need for a special life-line to take our vulnerable youths out of the murky waters and to place them on firm grounds.
The Citizen Security Strengthening Programme, (CSSP) maybe the answer to their cries, where jobless Amerindian young men and women will find little to do for their personal upliftment, but just to idle around their villages and communities to create problems for their village councils, and to venture further into more serious anti-social behavioral patterns to become potential perpetrators who will be easily recruited into a criminal enterprise on our border locations, that may one day come back to haunt our peaceful villages and present government.
Sincerely yours,
Mark Anthony Rodrigues

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