"Cabinet noted the steps that took place in a number of areas that impinge on national security on the East Coast, were geared to secure the well being of the residents of the communities surrounding Buxton, and that has seen further efforts at preventing the free movement of the marauding gangs from Buxton into the neighbouring communities on the east, on the west and to the south of Buxton", he said.

Gangs from Buxton have repeatedly attacked and robbed residents in neighbouring Annandale and other villages and the Police and Army have increased joint patrols and implemented other measures to try to ensure better security.

Luncheon said that at the policy-making level, the presentation of the Report from the Steering Committee on Public Consultations on Crime has led to the decision by the Office of the President to establish the National Commission on Law and Order -- a Commission whose terms of reference, membership and its rules of engagement have been pronounced on definitively by President Bharrat Jagdeo.

Additionally, he said, the President has obtained the "approval, the willingness of a number of technical personnel to form a small Presidential Advisory Committee on Crime."

That Advisory Committee would have membership from former Heads of the Joint Services, the Police and the Army, and other senior members of the Joint Services, who are no longer in the service of the Army or the Police Force, he said.

He also informed the media at yesterday's post-Cabinet briefing that the full Report of the Public Consultations on Crime can be accessed from the website of the Government Information Agency (GINA).

The top Government official explained that this method was resorted to as a cost-cutting measure.

Dispelling speculation that members of the Army were unhappy by the comments made by President Jagdeo on the non-response of some members of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) to criminal attacks on civilians on the East Coast Demerara, Luncheon said Cabinet was unaware of such a situation.

He pointed out that the President's focus is results-oriented.

"I am not aware in any of our engagements with the military that the President's comments were seen as the occasion for senior ranks to mention, or even to generate their concerns.

"Nothing that the President said was novel. The focus on results-orientation, in terms of the military's presence in Buxton and on the East Coast, has always been addressed in our Defence Board and the other encounters between the Commander-in-Chief and the military.

"So his remarks were not novel and I think that the President's contention -- the deployment of the military to serve a particular function -- had to be understood in a particular context," Luncheon explained.

Responding to a query on the current isolation of the troubled communities, he said that while this will cause some interruption of the interaction between communities, reasonable people will accept it as unavoidable.