The five-year plan, proposed by the Region Three Peace Council, envisages a balance in the ethnic composition of the forces to ensure that no ethnic groups are disenfranchised from serving in the armed forces, as it says is the current situation.

Tasked with reviewing the operations of the Disciplined Services, the DFC is to give priority to its probe of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and will submit a report of its findings and recommendations to the Assembly.

Justice of Appeal Ian Chang chairs the Commission which also comprises former Attorney-General Charles Ramson SC, former National Security Adviser, Brigadier (rtd) David Granger, attorney-at-law, Anil Nandlall and Irish human rights activist, Maggie Beirne.

Speaking yesterday at the Supreme Court Law Library, where public hearings are being held by the tribunal, Chairman of the Peace Council, Shabeer Zafar told the members that the plan would also ensure the quality of those recruited into the forces, which he said were in all practicality functioning with a policy of segregation.

The plan, according to a blueprint submitted to the Commission, would be implemented in three phases over the years 2004-2009.

The first phase of the plan, which will run within a two year time period from January 1, 2004, calls for the implementation of a special affirmative action recruitment drive to balance the make- up of the GPF and the army. A ratio of 65% East Indians to 10% Chinese, 10% Amerin-dians, 10% Portuguese and 5% any other group not visible in these services are to be recruited over this period, during which there would be two courses per year. No Afro-Guyanese person would be recruited during this initial phase.

In phase two, which runs January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2007, based on the yet-to-be-released results of the 2002 Population Census, a ratio of 50% East Indians, 30% Africans, 10% Chinese, 5% Amerindians and a ratio of 5% Portuguese per each recruit class are to inducted. These would be done in three courses over the period.

In phase three, from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008, stringent countrywide recruitment tests would be done to ensure that qualified persons enlisted into the services. There would be no ethnic requirements in this phase. After this phase, the group proposes a freeze on recruitment for the next two years, to allow the inductees greater opportunities for promotion and progression to other areas of aptitude within the forces. The funds saved during the freeze would be used to dispel the salary disparity between Guyana and other countries. In support of their arguments they noted that similar methodologies were employed by the Federal Government Public Service in Canada to achieve gender balance in the recruitment for Air Traffic Controllers. A similar mechanism was also employed to recruit Chinese landed immigrants in the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force.

Asked whether the plan had also factored in the possibility of persons not responding to the recruitment drives, Zafar considered that the enlistment of Portuguese might be a problem area, but said once implemented properly the plan was feasible.

Under examination by Ramson, Zafar admitted that the impetus for such a plan also lay in the impact it had on victims, who might feel more comfortable dealing with persons of their own ethnic grouping. He used the example of a battered East Indian woman who might feel more inclined to speak with someone to whom she could relate.

He conceded that this implied that areas that were populated by people of a specific ethnic background should be policed and served by persons reflecting that racial bias.

Noting the possibility of this leading to the systemising of segregation within the forces, Justice Chang asked Zafar to consider whether this could create a worse situation than the current one.

“Aren’t we officially transposing the racial conflict in society and placing it within the forces and creating a situation where there could be an implosion?” he considered.

When Nandlall asked him to consider if the Afro-Guyanese population would be disenfranchised in the first two years of the plan, Zafar said they would accept it, recognising that it was necessary to correct an imbalance. He added that they would still be given a chance to serve after the first two years, when only the most qualified of them would be accepted.

Granger, who, in his examination, asked how the application of the plan would impact upon crime fighting, was told by Zafar that the plan would supply the force with more educated recruits from a larger spectrum. He said this would benefit crime fighting in the long term. He also argued that the plan would also place the salaries of these servicemen on a par with those of countries in the Caribbean region.

“What mechanisms do you suggest for the retaining of the [East Indian] recruits,” Granger further inquired, noting that police ranks leave the force at the rate of one a day.

Zafar maintained that once the salaries were adequate and on a par with that in other countries, the incentive would assure that recruits stayed to serve the force.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day a Linden man who says he has suffered 40 years of unfair treatment at the hands of the GPF, called for the replacement of the Police Complaints Authority (PCA), which he says has failed to yield him redress.

Aeri Aesop asked that the PCA be replaced by any body that was independent of any police or political involvement.

Aesop said his being singled-out and his unfair treatment was solely on the basis of his political allegiance.

A PPP/C activist, he said his reports to police had always been ignored by authorities in Linden and his retreat to the PCA had met no better fate as over fifty reports that he had made had been disregarded.

“You think the police have a problem with your political allegiance?” he was asked by the Commission’s legal advisor Bertlyn Reynolds.

“Yes, madam. A policeman once told me [that] I must change. I said I am not a criminal. ‘Do you want me to change and become a criminal?’ And he laughed.”

Under cross-examination by the legal counsel for the Police, Bernard de Santos, SC, Aesop was asked if he had had any problems with individual members of the force. At this, he said it was his belief that officers prior to even being stationed in Linden were indoctrinated against him. He conceded this was only a gut feeling unsupported by any evidence.

Ramson asked whether the ethnic composition of the force in Linden was in any way responsible for his unfair treatment.

“I doubt whether there is a single Indian. At times you would find an Amerindian girl or an East Indian policeman. At present I don’t think you’ll find a single race except blacks and this is how it usually is almost all of the time.”