Crime in Guyana – a state of low-level anarchy

Aug 16, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Recently, changes have been made at senior operational levels inside the Guyana Police Force. Among citizens, the expectations are for less daily victimisation, less violence read about, and less fear surrounding one’s venturing into the criminal minefield that is Guyana nowadays. To put differently, all citizens desire to have a certain minimum degree of safety and security, and the confidence that comes from knowing that such safety and security actually exists.
But it is not so in Guyana today, where crime is out-of-control, and of any soothing statistics that represent otherwise, we have this to say: statistics be damned. Because statistics that are massaged and kneaded like dough do not have any meaning for fearful Guyanese. We in the independent media are well aware that leaders in the PPP Government would prefer that we do not report on the continuing state of crime in this society, which is now clearly only at a state of low-level anarchy. The word ‘only’ is used because where we are now is at the beginning of a crime rampage that spreads its tentacles in every nook and cranny of this country. Urban and rural areas are under siege, and the far hinterlands have their share of the serious crime that is everywhere.
Governments, and this one is no exception, have a long and incriminating history of wanting to make bad news go away, as though such never exist. Crime coverage by the media is at the top of the list of things looked to be suppressed. And when crime reaches the alarming proportions of creeping anarchy, then government use trusted strategies to overpower such news that leaders don’t want ventilated.
The first thing that discomfited government leaders do is to protest the ‘sensationalising’ of crime. Though people are attacked, waylaid, and wounded (even dying), with their blood running in the streets daily, or brutalised in their homes, this government would like nothing better than such harrowing developments not be placed before the attention of Guyanese. When crime is less of such a fearsome beast, then very few Guyanese would be concerned, except that it is not. In fact, citizens can hardly step out of their homes or vehicles, their businesses, or shop at the marketplace, and they are targeted and violated. These are not ‘one-offs’, or of a petty variety, such as routine pickpocketing, but of the reality of serious felonies and frightening brutalities occurring seemingly at will. The media is duty bound to report on this reality, as it occurs.
The PPP government may be loath to admit it, but what we have in Guyana is clearly an infant state of low-level criminal anarchy. Justified or not the reality is that when some citizens or segments of society are condemned to the margins, they take the law into their own hands, and there is hell to pay for the law abiding. When seasoned and prospective felons watch leaders, and their cronies enrich themselves (sometimes instigations come that reinforce such beliefs and observations), they then decide to create their own wealth on the backs of their fellow citizens. This aids leaders to carry on merrily because less attention is directed at them, and less criticisms are aimed at them.
Leaders in this PPP Government use more tricks to diminish messages of bad news and criminal anarchy. They engage PR machinery to smooth messages, and drown out the reality of criminal anarchy: delay messages, block senior police officers from public commenting, deny media access to them, limit public exposure. The preference is for well-worked over statistics to blur criminal anarchy. Also, Government targets those exposing it for crime control failure, white-collar corruptions, and acute oil mismanagement. Government utilises resources of the state to menace those calling it out for glaring missteps. Instead of solving real threats and real predators (local and foreign) this government prioritises weakening dissenters.
As we present this, we hope that Guyanese remain focused. When there is anxiety in the population over constant criminality, which stands as low-level anarchy, then citizens are preoccupied with their own safety. Criminal anarchy makes them feel so unsafe, they pay little attention to the billion-dollar oil heists happening, compliments of this Government and its foreign partners.

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