Ethic balance in security forces should also apply in other vital sectors

Jul 30, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

I was taken aback when senior members of one of our security forces reported that a meeting hosted by the Hon. Minister of Home Affairs, indicated that they should seek to ensure that there is ethnic balance in the Security Forces. This said matter came up over 50 years ago before an international panel. I, among others, argued then and today, that if the State apparatus believes in utility and necessity for ethnic balance then such a philosophy must permeate and saturate all aspects of our society.
We can begin with the use and allocation of State lands for forestry and mining. Let me hear a clarion call from the minister for ethnic balance in this area. Next, licences for the importation and sale of pharmaceuticals, allied goods and equipment. Third, the importation and sale of groceries and food stuff. Next, ethnic balance for licensing for firearms, etc. The importation of motor vehicles and heavy equipment. Awarding of multi-million contracts for large infrastructural works.
In all the above, there is substantial ethnic imbalance, which we now take for granted. As is the case above and many other areas, Afro-Guyanese constitute less than three percent of those controlling the above significant sectors and services. The question dear editor is, therefore, why should at this time a minister of government raise the ugly spectre of ethnic balance in the only area, where only one particular ethnic group, thanks to our colonial experience still constitutes the majority?
Further, the truth is only one of our ethnic groups for many generations found comfort in the security forces. The irony is this, there is no evidence that any government set out to throttle ethnic balance in our security forces. And we had an excellent Commissioner of Police, in the person of Commissioner Balram Ragubir, and in the military, we’ve had Colonel Clarence Price and Major Gen. Joe Singh, all men of excellence. Why this matter is being raised again is, of course, another matter and I hope that the president will arrange lessons to deal with our history and the consequences of our colonial experience, so that these clumsy missteps are avoided by his ministers, which unfortunately are not useful in a society that is polarised and yearning to be unshackled from the unhappy aspects of experiences. Let people go into areas, profession, jobs, trades, in which they are comfortable and derive happiness and satisfaction.
Last week, I found a photograph of my scout group, Queen’s College on a visit on Empire Day 1949 to the Governor on the grounds of Government House. The group consisted of 26 boys, an Englishman, Captain Harold Knobbs, the Principal of Queen’s College and the Scout Master, a British man, Captain Kenneth Maudsley. In that group, there was only one Indo-Guyanese youngster. Tried, as I did, I couldn’t persuade some of my Indo-Guyanese buddies to put on a uniform to join either the scouts or the cadet corps. The minister’s recent call is either insensitive or, behind it, some ulterior motive to control every aspect of life in the Co-operative Republic of Guyana.
Editor, I hope that your reporters will obtain an explanation from the minister as he pursues his mantra for ethnic balance in the police and other Forces.

Hamilton Green

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