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President bodyguards need training
Dear Editor,
As a former bodyguard and closeman with three presidents of Guyana, the late Cheddi and his wife Janet Jagan and Sam Hinds, I was shocked at the incident at State House. This is a major security breach that could have caused the life of more people, how did that person breach the gate to enter State House and disarm the sentry?
I remember Eric Liverpool, one of the instructors at our training camp at Timehri would tell us stories about what it takes to be a bodyguard for Burnham and would lecture us about, halt, who goes there, when you are on sentry and the rules of engagement, in those days professionalism, neatness, alertness and training were the watchword.
As a closeman with Cheddi and Janet, you have to be witty Cheddi and Hinds were not really security conscious but Janet was. She didn’t want bodyguards following her but we were there invisibly, in these times, security is top priority. I would normally watch videos of President Ali walkabout in Guyana, I can tell that his bodyguards need a lot of training. I remember while I was in the uniform section and worked the overnight tour, we were being taken to the gardens for drills and when I went over to the plain-clothes section, we had to fall out for PT under Ovid Hardy for Martial Arts training and then shooting at Timehri Ranges monthly.
The Head of the Presidential Guard should be someone experienced in Executive Protection and Presidential Security. The President should vacate State House; it’s too vulnerable and hard to defend. The city has become congested and traffic has increased in volume, protesters can swarm the compound and overrun security. I am thinking that the President would have constructed a state of the art security compound at D’Urban Park where it would house the official residence of the President and his office. I remember an incident at State House that occurred during the Jagan Presidency, a white American jumped over the fence at State House and he was quickly tackled and brought down by the sentry on duty. When he was questioned as to why he jumped the fence, he said that he works in the film industry in China and travels around the world and is staying at a guesthouse where he made friends with some of the guys living in the neighbourhood. One night, they were on a drinking spree and he asked who lived in that mansion over there and they told him the President. He said no way because in his travels to different countries, the Presidential compound is heavily guarded so he took a bet to jump, the next day, he was deported out of Guyana.
Yours truly,
S. Harald
Former bodyguard and closeman for Janet, Cheddi and Hinds
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