No justification for army's deployment on East Coast -Granger
Stabroek News
September 9, 2002
There is no justification for the army's deployment on the East Coast and its presence there is ruining its reputation, retired GDF Brigadier David Granger said on Thursday.
Granger was speaking on the issue of public safety and the role of the Disciplined Services, at the continuing discussion series organised by the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) and the Guyanese Citizen's Initiative. He described the Guyana Defence Force's (GDF) presence in Buxton as an absurdity and crazy and that it defeated the whole purpose of internal security. "It wouldn't work, it doesn't work and it's not working now and its going to harm both the GDF and the country."
He warned that the military was being sucked into a bundle of confusion on the East Coast and was not trained to solve crimes. Granger added that the current crime wave is not a result of the Mash Day escapees, but rather, the escapees, are manifestations of deeper problems that have plagued the nation for the past ten years.
He believes that the police force has not exhausted all of their efforts to the extent that the presence of the army was justified and said while soldiers were confined, the police were going home to their families or stopping vehicles for such trivial offences as tinted windows. They were not stopping and searching vehicles or cordoning off areas looking for the escapees.
He also discarded the idea of joint operations between the police and army. He was not convinced there was much "jointness" going on and pointed to recent patrols where there was a significant lack, if not complete absence of police presence.
He said the GDF operation on the East Coast was not clear-cut and an alternative solution need to be put in place.
He was also critical of President Bharrat Jagdeo's actions as Commander-in-Chief of the Guyana Defence Force and accused him of being preoccupied with other issues including taking trips to Jamaica, Washington and Johannesburg.
Former Assistant Commissioner of Police, Dereck Thompson also spoke at the meeting held at the National Library. He said the police force needed to be strengthened urgently and needed "to go back to the drawing-board and reorganise their strategies and tactics." Confidence building was important, especially in the wake of the recent targeting of policemen by criminals. He pointed out that members of the force are traumatised when they see their colleagues killed in the execution of their duties, while the criminals are buoyed by their successes. The failure to arrest and convict the perpetrators of such murders, he noted, has led members of the public to believe that the force is not in control of the situation. Thompson said it was crucial to establish a criminal intelligence unit, since this could assist in both solving crimes and the prosecution of criminals.
He conceded that the police could not act solely in the maintenance of law and order and would need the support of the government, citizens and more specifically, the GDF. He said the army had a role to play not in place of the police, but rather in support of them. The military should only be employed in this function if a state of emergency was declared and the force is unable to ensure law and order amidst widespread civil unrest. He was also concerned about the formation of vigilante groups as communities attempt to band together to protect themselves. He noted that such groups tended to get out of control.
Both men agreed that an ethnic balance in the disciplined forces was not possible.
Thompson said there might be the danger of polarising the disciplined services along ethnic lines, which could destroy their impartiality and professionalism.
Granger explained that just as in the selection of a cricket team, there was no place for ethnic balance in the GDF. He said the GDF ranks shared a subculture, and if persons did not share in it, their stay in the service would be very short and sticky.