Apart from demanding better performance from the Guyana Defence Force in protecting the country's territorial integrity, President Bharrat Jagdeo issued a long list of non-military duties when he addressed the Annual Officers' Conference on 9 May. He called on the Engineer Corps to supervise public works "to prevent contractors ripping off the Government" and he directed the Air Corps to continue its revenue-earning commercial flights.
More than that, the President reiterated his call for soldiers to be involved in combating civil unrest, contraband smuggling, narcotics-trafficking, armed criminals and natural disasters. He even suggested amending the Defence Act to allow the GDF a greater law-enforcement role in the country.
Since the 1970s when then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham tried to steer the GDF towards farming, fishing and road-building, among other economic activities, civilian politicians have been tempted to regard the Force and its assumed large, disciplined reservoir of manpower and equipment as having little to do.
Hence, it was normal to expect that the Force would be deployed on any short-term, labour-intensive operation such as a major flood. But, when soldiers were thrown willy-nilly into long-term projects, there has been little success.
Decades ago, the GDF Agriculture Corps learnt that it was cheaper to buy rice from real farmers, and fish from real fishermen. The GDF Engineer Corps participated in the celebrated Mahdia-Annai and Itaballi-Sand Landing road projects but these came to naught. The GDF Air Corps' involvement in commercial enterprise led to fatal accidents, one involving a helicopter in which a mining entrepreneur was killed and the second, in January 2001, in which two GDF pilots were killed along with their passenger and their uninsured aircraft completely destroyed. Success in commerce and science are not necessarily wrought by big battalions or men in olive green!
But, perhaps, the most controversial of the President's May directives is his proposed enhanced law-enforcement role for the GDF. The President must be aware that apprehending criminals, quelling riots and suppressing other forms of unlawful activity are the statutory duties of the Guyana Police Force and, only in emergencies when the Police has exhausted its resources and its reserves, and as a last resort, should the GDF be called out. The GDF does not possess more manpower or superior law enforcement capabilities than the Police which has a special unit - the Tactical Services Unit - trained and equipped to deal with disorder. But, over the years, the Administration's easy recourse to deploying troops on the streets has led to complacency in the Police Force.
The rot was revealed in the recent Report by the UK-sponsored Symonds Group which found that of the 278 members of the TSU, 72 (or 25 per cent) were employed in the Police Credit Union, the Officers' Mess, the Finance Department and the Training School and, as a whole, the Unit's command, training, administration, equipment and readiness were unacceptably low. The Report also exposed the inefficient assignment of trained policemen on numerous administrative, clerical and elementary chores that should be given to civilian employees and agencies.
The President may have been embarrassed by the Police Force's failure to apprehend five escapees from the Georgetown Prison for over three months and could be tempted to deal with crime by calling out the troops. But the lessons of the ultra-destructive military-police siege of a guest house to capture the fugitive Linden London suggest that there may be more intelligent and efficient methods of law enforcement than military force.
The President should look to Eve Leary, not Thomas Lands, to solve the crime problem by correcting the deficiencies in the Police Criminal Investigation Department, which the UK Report described as "a relic of the early 20th century." The CID's forensic capability was described as "negligible" and its role has been hampered by the lack of modern investigative techniques. How is the GDF expected do better?
When it came to issuing instructions to deploy the GDF on proper defence tasks such as patrolling the country's lawless land frontiers, expelling illegal garimpeiros, protecting legitimate mining investments and preventing aircraft hijackings from hinterland airstrips, however, the President seemed to have no immediate plans.
If the GDF is to be deployed on commercial enterprises and law enforcement duties on the coastland, the question may well be asked who will perform the real task of defending Guyana's borders and hinterland?