The Guyana Indian Heritage Association (GIHA) has welcomed the findings and recommendations of the Disci-plined Forces Commission (DFC), but is worried about their implementation.
"While GIHA welcomes the DFC's report, the group is concerned about the implementation of the recommendations given that the PPP Government has never moved to properly deal with professionalising the disciplined forces until pressured to do so because of the violence that gripped Guyana between 2002 and 2003," it says in a press statement.
"In GIHA's estimation, this was violence that was waiting to happen because government was indifferent to addressing internal security matters since taking office in 1992."
The Indian rights group was among several organisations that expressed concerns about the ethnic composition of the forces, one of the areas which was being examined.
GIHA says the report's recommendations, which look at instituting measures to attract more Indian Guyanese to the forces, addresses the group's concerns.
According to the DFC's report only eight per cent of the GDF's ranks and officers are Indian Guyanese. While historical considerations that have led to this imbalance are noted, the commission suggests that recruitment procedures should now have particular focus on Indian Guya-nese.
Among the recommended procedures to effect this are the establishment of multi-ethnic recruitment panels and the creation of public information campaigns that would highlight the army's inclusionary ethnic recruitment and retention policy.
GIHA had written to the Chief of Staff of the GDF in January to offer suggestions for recruitment and retention of the Indian Guyanese in the army.