From punishment to

repression

A fifth feature to be highlighted is that as resistance to authoritarian rule developed, governmental coercion shifted from punishment to repression. While torture and the more extreme excesses were not routine in Guyana, as it was elsewhere, a large cadre of enforcers, thugs, and spies were created. These found “unproductive employment” in facilitating the repressive functions of the state, which were both openly and covertly repressive. The covert apparatuses hid the excesses of the ruling regime just as the shift to repression facilitated the flourishing of police-administrative methods of curtailing such freedoms as assembly, speech, representation, and the right to form associations.

These aspects of the state apparatus were also directed at the systematic executive manipulation of the electoral system, the legal process, and as I argued elsewhere, constitutionality in general. The fiction was invented that the 1980 Constitution provided a legal basis for the constitutional exercise of state power as it was then practised. This executive licence, as I termed it last week, was facilitated by the deadly mixture of 1) the Westminster tradition of accepted Conventions and an unwritten Constitution and, 2) the grey area produced by the coexistence of common law derived therefrom with a written colonial Constitution. This grey area was used to advance the “legal claim” that all residual powers not defined either in the Constitution or common law, along with the “supreme power” previously exercised by the Colonial Authorities, devolved directly and exclusively to the President. The British doctrine that the “Crown can do no wrong” was of course fully embodied in the Presidency with the promulgation of the 1980 Constitution.

Corruption and “Corporatism”

As state control of the economy and society expanded so did corruption. Much of this was in the form of nepotism, clientilism and the misuse of public resources by those in charge. Authorita-rian rule was, however, linked to a cooperative socialist ideology, and this made it impossible for the type of highly organised systematic corruption openly practised today to flourish.

As resistance to authoritarian rule spread among the population the state resorted to both overt and covert ways to undermine the mass organisations through which this resistance was developing. Thus trade unions, producer bodies, professional associations, political parties, human rights organisations were all subjected to considerable pressure and state intimidation. As a rule they were denied access to the state media and efforts to develop their own media outlets were frustrated by a string of state restrictions, prohibitions and bans.

In this period what our Latin American neighbours refer to as “corporatism” also expanded. This was seen in the formation by the state of “parallel institutions” in the private sphere run on its behalf. Thus the state created or supported its own “people’s organisations” (for example trade unions), which it strove to recognise as the only authentic representative of the particular interest or issue the organisation was created to serve.

Political Anachronism and Social Pathology

While the authoritarian state appeared to be a political solution to the circumstances facing the PNC at the time, in retrospect, it can be seen that it actually intensified the problem of the economy and society; generated international coalitions against it, both state and non-state; weakened the state itself, and therefore, ultimately, the ruling party. This too will be the outcome of the criminalized state. In both instances the Achilles heel of these states is that they are political and social deformations, or perhaps more accurately political anachronisms and social pathologies, which cannot survive in the age of globalisation and “democratic governance”.

The final feature to which attention is drawn is an aspect of the political culture generated by the methods of rule and governance of the authoritarian period. This is the embedding of the “criminal option” among the population as a means of survival. As state control of the economy grew in the 1980s, the combination of domestic mismanagement, world economic recession, and skyrocketing oil prices led to massive economic decline. For a prolonged period, even as the economic situation worsened, state controls expanded. Import prohibitions and bans, foreign currency controls, an extensive licensing system, rationing and the administration’s allocation of goods and services became the order of the day. These actions failed however, to cover up the basic shortages facing the economy. In order to satisfy their basic needs persons began to routinely and systematically circumvent and undermine the system of regulations. Those who had charge of the system of regulation also saw the opportunity to make a living or to help friends, and abuse of the regulations became the norm. Fundamentally, the system of economic governance was so unwieldy and impractical that the inventiveness of the ordinary person was constantly directed at evading laws and regulations.

This period was the kernel that gave rise to systematic smuggling along our porous borders and unregulated coastline, and the formation of “networks” with criminal elements in neighbouring countries and the Caricom region. Ultimately, however, this widespread criminal behaviour among the population was premised on a profound political disrespect for the laws, regulations, and authority of the authoritarian state.

Next week we begin the summation of the main hypothesis of the criminalized state and the salience of these observations will be noted appropriately.