How effective a role is the Guyana Defence Force really playing to help the Guyana Police Force in ensuring a safe and secured environment for the people of this nation?

More specifically, in curbing the flourishing criminal enterprise at work in Buxton -right under the noses of soldiers.

Like armies in every independent state, the GDF has more than the primary responsibility of defending the territorial integrity of the country. It can also be summoned by the civil power, as circumstances demand, to protect the integrity of the State

That integrity has been challenged by the unprecedented and criminal rampage of murder, kidnappings and armed banditry for almost a year. The GDF's performance record in helping to even blunt the criminal offensive has been, in the assessment of some who should know, one of a very low grade, if not an `F’.

The government had requested the help of the GDF to join with the Guyana Police Force to beat back the criminals and prevent this country from degenerating into a lawless republic. The police, who themselves have suffered losses at the hands of armed criminals, could have done much better.

But sadly, it is the GDF which has been found most wanting, to judge from the reported statements, including those attributed to public officials, and frequent media accounts of the sheer lack of performance by soldiers on crime patrols along the East Coast Demerara.

This has been particularly noticeable in relation to Buxton village, the recognised `epicentre’ of crime, where the GDF has had a permanent but seemingly useless presence for some months now, while the government continues to pump millions of dollars to beef up the resources of the security forces.

Significant expenditures
It is perhaps useful, in this context, to recall the level of expenditure of state funds on the army and police for fiscal year 2003: Some G$2.6 Billion for the GDF including $147 million in capital expenditure. For the Police Force, the total is $3.1 Billion, including $280 million for capital expenditure.

The significance of the expenditure is best understood if compared with what existed in 1992. Then, when the seven-year rule of the PNC under Desmond Hoyte's leadership came to an end, total actual expenditure for the GDF was just over $606 million and G$623 million for the police.

Together, that amounted to some G$1. 2 Billion, with capital resources of no more than $42,000. Yes, $42,000. By comparison, the present government last year allocated a grand total of some $5. 9 Billion for the army and police, with combined capital expenditure accounting for $639 million.

Even with falling exchange rates against the US dollar and fluctuations in inflation, the government's positive responses to meet the needs of the nation's security forces have indeed been impressive when there are so many other pressing demands.

Readers would, of course, recall that 1992 marked the end of the dispensation of rigged elections when the army and police - against their better judgement, I would like to believe - were made parties to hijacking ballot boxes and frustrating opposition to the PNC in defence of a then prevailing doctrine of `party paramountcy’.

It needs to be said that much of today's criminal woes, mind-boggling kidnappings and murder, lawlessness and corruption involving a criminal network seemingly connected to crooked security forces personnel and other people in public life, cannot be easily disconnected from the PNC-spawned and enforced doctrine of `party paramountcy’.

It is a doctrine only less dangerous than America's new doctrine of "regime change" by military force in a sovereign state. It was the PNC's doctrine that had made a total farce of electoral democracy and elevated `thiefing’ to a fine art.

The `thiefing’, that is, of a people's right to free and fair elections and leaving them to be “governed" by a party with the backing of the security forces whose own votes were assured for that ruling party - until this political wickedness was no longer possible by October 1992.

Therefore, considering the level of public expenditure to improve the resources of both the army and police, and the necessity for the soldiers to also be ready, and willing, to work honestly alongside the police to end the nightmare of crime and violence, the question of relevance remains:

Relevant Question
How really effective are the men of the GDF in pushing the criminals on the defensive by simply going - for a change - on the offensive? When will it happen?

Those who expediently rationalise the inaction, the failure of the soldiers to make their presence felt in combating crime by glibly talking about the soldiers lacking police powers of arrest, would know that the members of the GDF can, like any other citizen of this country, carry out an arrest against someone in the course of committing a crime.

There are cases, including those of shocking kidnapping crimes along the East Coast Demerara - two Trinidadian nationals and the American official of a week ago, for example - when the soldiers could have carried out arrests and hand over the armed criminals to the police. They did not. Why?

If indeed, the media accounts are accurate, and they have not been challenged, then Brigadier Michael Atherly seems to have good reasons to take some appropriate action, if he is so disposed.

Before settling down to write this column, I made various efforts last week, to reach first, Brigadier Atherly, then officers in the GDF's public relations/information section. I was unsuccessful.

The officer who gave his secretary a cell phone number for me to call only for me to discover that he had turned it off, would know what I am talking about. Perhaps local media colleagues may fare better.

But from what I have been told, unlike in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, there is not a culture of the GDF's high command being easily accessible to the media.

I must, however, record my appreciation for the cooperation of Police Commissioner Floyd McDonald and his top colleagues.

The Contrast
Often, in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and to a lesser extent in Barbados, the soldiers have been called upon to join with the police in battling serious criminal activities. When the GDF was called upon to do the same here, it was, therefore, nothing unusual.

In contrast to the successes attained in a number of the joint army/police patrols in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, the performance of GDF soldiers has been one of spectacular failure, as media reports would confirm.

So spectacular and worrying in fact, that Guyanese at home and abroad are discussing disturbing questions about the competence and/or commitment of ranks within the GDF.

It is inconceivable, especially after the sensational kidnapping of the senior official of the US embassy, Lesniak, that the GDF's own intelligence network could be so deficient that the army's high command would not be aware of what's being said about the role of the army at this period of a flourishing criminal enterprise that is dangerously tainting the image of Guyana.

Rogue cops and soldiers have often tainted the good name of many police services and armies in the Caribbean and other regions of the world. Some are eventually discovered and effectively dealt with. Others manage to quit before discovery of their crimes.

Some are lucky and remain, well ensconced in ranks, to continue benefiting from their collaboration with criminals and dealers in financial corruption. Or, in serving as moles for those with an agenda for economic sabotage and political destabilisation.

In the case of Guyana, what the people want, what they need and deserve, is that their soldiers demonstrate just a little of the intelligence and fighting power they possess within their ranks to help curb, in collaboration with the police, the terrifying onslaught by the criminal network.

Especially those reputed "master minds" and "enforcers" operating out of their safe haven in Buxton, not all of whom can be unknown to either the soldiers and the police.