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Police – government not responsible
Editorial…
Kaieteur News- Guyana’s Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, SC, has all the thunder of a punctured balloon, and also its persuasive power. According to the AG, the PPPC Government is not responsible for the actions of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) in the case of the death of 11-year-old Adrianna Younge. No responsibility for what was initiated by the GPF, none for what has surrounded the embattled law enforcement entity since. We agree with the AG up to a point, for there isn’t the belief that the government passed orders to the GPF to operate as it did, throughout this whole deplorable situation. But members of the nation’s top protective agency didn’t come to the state that it is, without some powerful sense that the government has their back, when they violate the standards of good policing through their actions.
When corruption in its many forms, and its frequency, has reached the stage of a national norm, some in the GPF, in turn, convince themselves that they possess enough official secrets that give them immunity to conduct themselves as they do. When so much that is unlawful is left to go abegging, leaves a trail of distrust behind that will not go away, then it could be the sitting government is either blind or impotent to stop the rot. It is either the GPF has become a government of itself, and makes its own laws as it goes along, without fear of interference, or any anxieties over correction and punishment.
The AG has been in government and his commanding role long enough to appreciate that the GPF is not an island, that as this constitutional institution goes, so the government of the day is seen. The GPF has been tampered with, manipulated this way and that, and made to look like a stooge functioning not in accordance with the law and organizational procedures, but to jump to the dictates of political masters. The history of this country is that the GPF has been misused to violate the freedoms and rights of citizens, by one government after another. It has been made into a tool by different governments to cheat citizens of the just processes they are owed. Policies fail, morale suffers, systems collapse, when a culture of lawlessness becomes the guiding element of any agency, state of private. Unsurprisingly, the scheming in the GPF chart how they can take advantage of that culture.
Police ranks and police officers are not mindless robots. The good cops are appalled, but continue to give of their best, while hoping for change. The so-called bad cops are aggressive, resourceful in seeking out opportunities to enrich themselves, while thwarting the course of justice. When the roadblock to nab drunk drivers is removed due to political interference, the dirty cops take note. When the huge white-collar crimes involving the politically connected are covered up, the good cops are overwhelmed, lose their spark. When high-profile murders are allowed to grow cold, due to the reach of the perps, then somebody somewhere has some connection to, some responsibility for, the frightening state of the GPF. And it is not the GPF itself, but hands bigger than it that have commandeered it towards where and how it is. From their history, from GPF longstanding practices, Guyanese know who is responsible, the tentacles that wrap around it, and suck the life out of it.
When advancement is arranged to reward those, the undeserving. Who can be counted upon to be ‘cooperative’, then responsibility for their actions starts there. When clean cops are denied promotion, or put out to pasture, then inevitably those with less regard for internal standards and professional ethics are the ones that garner political approval, and rise to the top. They will do whatever has to be done, then work harder to conceal their tracks. No government can say that it has done its duty, has no responsibility, and is content to be a bystander in such circumstances. When the government of the day owns the mechanisms that stifle ethical cops and incentivize questionable ones, then it is laughable that the AG finds comfort in the porous defense of no responsibility. Worse, he insults citizens with his ‘don’t-look-at-the-PPPC Government defense.’
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