The kind of "news" from a historically famous village of the colonial era that has disgraced not just the people of a criminally-infested Buxton/Friendship area, but Guyana as a whole.

As this editorial was being written, there were police reports of as many as four bullet-riddled bodies being found in the Buxton-Friendship area.

The report on this latest tragedy, as well as a reportedly linked fire that destroyed a dwelling house in Pike Street, Kitty, is published elsewhere in today's paper.

Yesterday's tragedy, linked to gang warfare, followed the report on Friday of another gun-related clash of criminals that resulted in the murder of a youth and the wounding of two others.

Together, the tragedies of dead bodies lying around from gang warfare, have come as a reminder - if indeed one is really required - of the national disgrace with which this country has been living for far too long by the grip of armed criminals in Buxton/Friendship.

In addition to the killing of Kwesi Williams, and the wounding of Samantha Pollard and Compton Dorsette, two homes were also set afire.

In an earlier editorial (March 10) titled `Challenge for Buxton’, this newspaper asked:

"It is more than high time to ask when will the decent, law-abiding villagers of Buxton move to reclaim their once proud village from the armed bandits who have transformed it into a criminal sanctuary?

And, "when will the great majority of Buxtonians rise up to liberate their village from the armed criminals and their supportive network?”

In a letter published yesterday in another section of the media, Yvonne Jackson, expressed her outrage against the brazen robbery carried out at the home of a Buxton resident by bandits who looted, among other belongings, expensive items from a barrel sent from the USA.

She lamented the "criminal underworld operating in Buxton with the aim at creating a climate of fear and intimidation" of the people of that once proud village.

Earlier, the columnist and social commentator, Alan Fenty, asked a number of very important questions in his last Friday's column in the Stabroek News when dealing with the challenge posed for law and order by criminals in the Buxton area.

For instance, he asked: "Who would be more given to thinking that they could somehow benefit from the organised or accommodated criminal resistance against the Police in Buxton?

"Why is there no criminal safe-havens and resistance in other similarly-depressed communities (like Buxton)?" Fenty said there are "a few misguided Afro-Guyanese who actually condone the principle of what's going on in Buxton..."

State within a State?
With Buxtonians refusing to pay electricity bills and virtually operating as a state within the State, attacking and robbing, killing and hijacking at will, defying the police and army, the Government has to accept that this is a challenge to its authority that requires the most effective response the combined security forces are capable of mounting.

While some quibble and offer self-serving argument about extending police powers to the Guyana Defence Force while on anti-crime patrols, the truth is that if, after almost a year of criminal rampage, and in particular the defiance of the criminals in the Buxton/Friendship area, both the police and army should appreciate the direct challenge posed to their competence and integrity.

For them to think otherwise is to increasingly be mocked and defied by the criminals operating out of Buxton with a supporting network that seems to include well-connected informers and beneficiaries of the spoils of criminal activities.

Prime Minister Sam Hinds, in a rare official candid response to the threat posed by the criminals of Buxton/Friendship, left no doubt about his anxiety for the security forces to effectively and decisively move against what he estimates to be a hard core of some 30 to 40 of them.