The buck stops with the President
Editorial
Stabroek News
April 24, 2003
Several days ago in an interview with the Government Information Agency (GINA), President Jagdeo sought to do two things: restate his disappointment with the performance of the security forces in dealing with the crime epidemic and to stress that the government had provided the law enforcement agencies with all of the available resources and it was up to them to do the job vis-a-vis ridding Buxton of the criminals. He said in part "the government can only give material or moral support - we do not go out with guns to fight the situation, that's the role of the police ... and now the army has gotten involved".
The unmistakable conclusion to be drawn from this statement and others in the interview was that the President was saying that he had done all he could and it was now up to the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Defence Force to do the job. The President's statement was probably prompted in part by the mounting criticism of him and his administration for not managing to get on top of crime.
As Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and President of the Republic, the buck stops with the President. The failure of the police and the army to discharge their duties in relation to Buxton also constitute a failure of the Presidency which Mr Jagdeo must recognise and confront head on.
While it is important that he publicly express his frustration over the role of the army and the police it is inappropriate for this to continue in the public. It is counterproductive. This is not the first public dressing down of the army and police by the President and it is certainly not the best method of achieving his objectives.
As Commander-in-Chief, the President is in charge of the army and the Chief of Staff would have to be accountable to him for the operational performance of the soldiers. As President, the Minister of Home Affairs is answerable to him for the performance of the police force. The President made it clear in the GINA interview that he has handed down orders for decisive action to be taken and that it was known to the security forces that he wanted Buxton `cleaned out'.
If after a year of waiting the results are still quite unsatisfactory then it means that the President's instructions have been disobeyed, the strategies are unworkable or those put in charge of them are hopelessly incompetent. Whatever the reason, the person with the ultimate authority to wring the changes and effect some positive turnaround is the President.
For instance, has the army's comprehensive failure to help restore law and order on the East Coast been evaluated by the President and his security chiefs and the changes necessary implemented? Maybe the personnel assigned to Buxton should be removed from the theatre or maybe the commanding officers are not handling instructions the way they should. Or perhaps the time has arrived for an in-depth discussion - in Parliament - on changing the mandate of the army on the East Coast so that it could be accorded police powers and shift from being a lethal, non-engaging force to one that apprehends and intercepts criminals in the way the police are expected to. And what about a state of emergency or a limited state of emergency to improve the environment in which the army is operating?
Have these discussions taken place between the President and the Chief of Staff, Brigadier Atherly, and are they continuing? What changes have been implemented to ensure that units deployed to the East Coast and their commanders are responding to the numerous crimes occurring under their noses? Why are these changes not working? Is there something fundamentally flawed in the army's mandate? This is the level of the dialogue that the President and his security chiefs should be engaged in.
On the police front perhaps the Ministry of Home Affairs has been ineffective in crafting potent strategies in conjunction with the police to arrest crime or perhaps the police are simply not responding having lost over 20 of their number at the hands of savage murderers.
Either way, the responsibility and authority rest with the President to be the change agent. He can sound exasperated as he did in the GINA interview but he must at the same time ensure that he is making every effort to reverse the sweeping tide of crime and that the public is kept abreast of these. There has been little evidence to date of changes in the security strategies employed by the police and army or in the people executing the orders. If needs be there must be a top to bottom shake up in the security apparatus to give people some hope that this malevolent wave of crime can be crushed. Those who are standing in the way of a successful fight against crime or are having no effect must be removed forthwith. Those with the primary responsibility for dealing with crime are the Police Commissioner (ag) and the Home Affairs Minister. Why, Mr President, are they still in their posts in light of their abject failure? What has become of the SWAT team that was promised since last year?
And what exactly does the President mean by a "clean out" of Buxton and what specific instructions has he given to the police and army to achieve this?
The layman who has observed the depredations of Buxton-based gunmen over the last year or so knows what has to be done right away to restore some measure of control over the criminals in the village. The police - in the main - and the army have to establish an effective presence in the village and particularly the dreaded `Gulf'. There is not the slightest evidence of it. Mobile and static patrols are not enough, there has to be a substantial deployment of men and materiel to Buxton. Exhaustive searches have to be conducted in the village and neighbouring areas for wanted men and ammunition caches. There must also be a concerted effort to repair relations between the police and Buxtonians. These are some of the steps which the President should ensure are robustly pursued by the police and the army. Have these instructions been passed to the army and police through the command structure?
