In a matter of seventy-two hours between June 3rd and 5th some 12 suspected and confirmed criminals were shot dead. The hornet’s nest appears to have been broken up and by week’s end the President was advising the nation to stay vigilant. It is important to analyse the events of the last 16 months. It is to be believed that the deaths of feared criminals will not in actuality stop future crime of the type recently experienced by the nation. Unless handled carefully we can wake up to discover that there has been a mutation of the criminal of today into something unrecognizable and unstoppable tomorrow.
Some lessons learnt were that the criminals were for the most part from depressed communities, their average age was 22, they transcended all ethnic groupings, they were fearless and prepared to die in a blaze of glory, flight was not a consideration as they made Guyana their stomping ground. Our average criminal becomes a father by age 18 and has responsibilities. He invariably fails to land a job when searching. He has a reputation to upkeep of being tough and independent. He eventually finds himself turning to crime beginning with petty crimes and then building up to more serious offences such as robbery, kidnapping and murder. This is the crucible, which forges the modern criminal such that by age 22 he becomes a soldier in someone’s army.
Guyana is a poor country with very few opportunities. University graduates have a 15% chance of landing a job, much less one of their choice. For a young man coming out of the depressed centres in Georgetown, Linden and New Amsterdam or from one of the dishevelled villages along the Coast, or in the interior, the prospects of finding a job are slim to impossible. When the great escape in February 2002 occurred the PPP/C parroted the nonsense that it was the PNC/R behind the crime and then clumsily they stumbled towards the excuse that it was the narcotics trade with its attendant gang warfare and phantoms that were the cause of the mayhem. The latest excuse I believe I heard was that of organized crime at work as adumbrated by the head of the Government Information Agency. All three missed their mark and I believe deliberately so. For so long as the Government could have the nation and particularly its own supporters believe that the crime was someone else’s fault and better yet the PNC/R’s, it was great. As an added bonus an opportunity presented itself to further demonise the PNC/R. This was a big deflection screen that would rival the US National Defence system designed to destroy or deflect incoming missiles in space. As the wise Guyanese population soon came to realize, it was not about being African or Indian. It was not about the PNC/R sponsoring terrorism. It was not about the fight between rival narcotics gangs. It was in fact all about the failure of a government to provide bread and shelter to hundreds of thousands of people and the misguided belief of a few young men that they would challenge the matrix and take matters into their own hands.
In 1997 and 2001, these symbolic young men voted for change and on each occasion their hopes were dashed. They had been led to believe that an election victory by the PNC/R or some other party would mean immediate milk and honey. That utopia not having been realized, it was time to take control. The transition from normal existence to gun toting for survival happened over a period of 5-7 years. Few realized that it was unfolding and now it is almost complete. Reversing it is not going to be easy and will require the input of all the players. The PNC/R is going to be as much under pressure as will the PPP/C. Both are going to have to come very good to meet the minds of these young men and the women and children who are going to idolize them. Unless the major parties can find a modus vivendi to be able to work together to the satisfaction of their mutual constituencies trouble lies ahead.
The noted Jamaican sociologist Barry Chevannes writing about the obsession with the gun by Jamaica’s young men states: “We do not for example know why the gun has become such a symbol of young male identity at this turn of the century, but it has. The proliferation of guns is not simply a function of the drug trade but the ultimate representation of what it means to be a man, the object of the fear and respect of others and the fearless defender of one’s own self-respect..... the illegal possession of the gun by many male youths is seen exactly the same way as the legal possession of it - the ultimate defence.”
The similarities are amazing and place into context the development of the young criminal in Guyana. He is not only dispossessed and disrespected, he is hungry and angry at the world. He has lost hope in the ability of the system to deliver for him. He is educated and sophisticated and he will put these to good use.
It is being argued therefore that given the current economic trends and discriminating practices of the government and private sector towards these young persons, there is already in the breeding stages another generation of young men who are likely to take up arms. This new generation will analyse the mistakes of the last and try not to fall victim as they did. They will be smarter, slicker and better equipped. They will come of age at a time when hope in a political system to protect them from discrimination, to guarantee equal opportunity, respect, food, and shelter is close to nil.
Recent events show that this new man will see his actions not as criminal but as a means to an end. He will not be Afro-Guyanese only but also Amerindian, East Indian and Portuguese and sometimes a mixture of all these. If he is a foreigner trapped in Guyana by circumstances and faced with the same odds he will act predictably as his Guyanese counterparts would. In the case of Romel Reman from all accounts he was not considered a monster and take for example Toney Singh who was gunned down with Shawn Brown. It must be concluded that he could not have been a bandit driven by racial hate as the others were portrayed and so too the same must be said for “Brazilian Buck” and “Wild Buck”. (I hope in time their true names and identities are established). It could not have been that these men hated East Indians and swore to wipe them out. The evidence just does not show it. What is does show is a group of men desperate to not only survive in Guyana but also thrive the way they thought best. Unfortu-nately for them, society says their way was wrong.
Recognising that this is the situation that we face in the near future, what is the best way to prepare for it? Preparation, whilst including good policing, must necessarily extend to wholesome socio-economic policies and programmes that target the young urban man as being vulnerable and susceptible to poverty in the same way as we view the pregnant and lactating woman and children as being at greatest risk. We need to treat these young men with great care and attention by finding ways to occupy their energies after high school. It is imperative that work programmes are developed to specifically target them for jobs and relief. Make the idea of a national service or volunteer or apprenticeship corps a reality. Open up new townships in the hinterland and provide incentive schemes to attract and keep them there. For so long as we allow thousands of young men and women to develop in the same incubator as those before them, the being that will spring out will not be difficult to imagine.
As a start I recommend the construction of a number of subsidised sports facilities in Southern Georgetown and in the recognized depressed communities. We need more swimming pools, basketball courts, tennis courts, boxing gyms and football fields. I am aware that the President’s Youth Choice Initiative attempts to do something of this kind but with due respect this initiative has never been able to gain the credibility it requires for it to be seen as a genuine attempt at poverty alleviation. The private and public sectors must also recognize that they have a responsibility to absorb as many of these persons as possible regardless of their ethnicity or background.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed. We have been warned that there are already successor waves forming. Confronting them with force is going to be a disaster. We need urgently to divert the waves’ energy into positive outfalls. History will judge us harshly if we ignore or bungle the opportunity. Few will probably be found guilty but all will be held responsible.