Most, not all, because a peculiar section of the Guyanese populace sees any offensive that seeks to confront criminals not as an initiative designed to restore public safety but as a hate-ethnic campaign seeking to rid the country of so-called “resistance fighters.”

Others, belonging to another sect of that weird minority, regard crime fighting as an immoral approach to what they say should be an offensive on the country’s socioeconomic woes.

We’re still to get a definition of the term “resistance fighters” for those who escaped from prison on February 23, 2002, killing one prison officer and wounding another in the process, and then weaving a web of crime that has led to the international community deeming Guyana as a high-crime society that visitors should be wary of.

Long overdue also is an explanation of what living in anything but a high-rise apartment building, not having a wardrobe of brand-name apparel, or not owning a SUV, have to do with a so-deprived person having the right to rob, rape, kidnap or murder another person, or to hijack and/or destroy another person’s property.

Bob Marley probably wasn’t the only person to say it, but the late King of Reggae sure popularized the maxim that only “who feels it knows it.”

So, for the hundreds of traumatized survivors who have felt it and the rest of us who have been negatively affected by the perpetration of any or all of these heinous crimes, the Joint Services operations are part of an initiative whose time has come.

We also welcome the Army’s commitment to staying the anti-crime course, undaunted by reports that the two law enforcement agencies are at “odds” over the scheduling of their collaboration in crime fighting in Buxton.

Even for those who had been apprehensive, the results of the joint operations have drawn positive reviews and cautious optimism, both statistics and anecdotal evidence lending credence to their hope.

Crime has been markedly worse in suburban Georgetown and East Demerara, leaving even well meaning Guyanese to wonder which of the government’s anticrime programmes would really work.

The arrests of crime suspects, stolen articles and ammunition in the Buxton operations must therefore offer some reassurance not only to those who live in these two geographic areas, but also to those who live elsewhere and those who might resigned to any irreversibility of the situation.

Many people have argued since Mash Day 2002 that had the police and army responded as decisive then as it is doing now - tracking down, flushing out and arresting the criminals or crime suspects who are dug in at Buxton, the crime situation in the country as a whole would not have gone beyond manageable proportions.

Whatever the answers, the contingent’s myriad initiatives are positive, if somewhat belated, responses to a changing Guyana hustling to get to the upper crust of Caribbean and global development. And that’s something we’re all grateful for.

The Joint Services operation deserves support from all quarters. And we’re pleading with Guyanese to look out for their families and themselves, but also to look out for each other, and to get involved in anti-crime programmes in their communities.