Ask anyone and they will tell you that crime is spiralling out of control. In every region, in every village, citizens are worried, living in fear. They see it with their own eyes and too often, too many families feel the pain of murders, robberies, beatings and rapes. I know the Police have consistently maintained that crime is down compared to last year or whatever is another convenient baseline. Even as we read and experience daily another gruesome crime somewhere in Guyana and another family’s experience of being beaten and robbed, the Police provide us with statistics to prove their point that crime is down. Depending on who is speaking and when, APNU/AFC tells the nation crime is down and crime is up, conflating an appalling arrogance with a sinking feeling that confusion reigns in the ranks of government.
The economy is sinking, unemployment is rising, sugar is collapsing, rice is undergoing its worst period in more than twenty years, but every citizen will tell you that crime is our most urgent business right now. Spiralling crime has reached emergency proportion, while the government is confused and often MIA (missing in action). When they do appear, APNU/AFC simply reverts to the old and tested mantra – blame Jagdeo, Ramotar and the PPP. As crime plagues our everyday lives everywhere in Guyana, citizens are increasingly despondent that David Granger, his Public Security Minister and his Cabinet are lost at sea, clueless and worse, uncaring. Fudging the statistics is not a plan, is not a remedy. Fudging the statistics keep ordinary citizens fearfully awake at nights, even if it guarantees that APNU/AFC leaders blissfully sleep the nights away.
President Granger, in an obvious appeal to his supporters, announced this past week that crime in Guyana right now is of a special kind – it is organised to make his government look bad. In an insensitive perversion of the truth, he has sought to make himself and his APNU/AFC colleagues the victims of crime and ordinary citizens, the actual victims, become merely collateral damage. Notice how citizens are always mere collateral damage for APNU/AFC. So the family which just lost everything they own because of a brutal robbery is not the victim. The criminals did not commit a crime against the family; they were merrily trying to make APNU/AFC look bad.
Granger alluded to some form of centrally organised chaos designed to embarrass the government. He knows much about centrally organised violence to embarrass and destabilize a Government. As a historian and a leader of the People’s National Congress, he is well-aware of the centrally organised thuggery in the early 1960s that eventually led to the PPP being driven out of office and the PNC initiated the dictatorship that lasted almost three decades in Guyana. He is well aware of the centrally directed crime waves in the 2002-2006 period that was designed to overthrow the PPP government. That centrally organised criminality involved elements in the army and the Police, persons who are now an integral part of the APNU/AFC leadership. No doubt he has not forgotten the centrally directed violence in Linden when APNU/AFC organised protests against the proposed increase of electricity rates.
Adding to the lame excuse from the APNU/AFC, the Minister of Public Security, who seems to be in “never never” land most of the time, bemoans the lack of resources to Police the border. I am hopeful that Ramjattan has not forgotten that he, his boss, David Granger, and colleagues like Basil Williams, Winston Felix, Nagamootoo, Greenidge, and many others voted against a trafficking of illegal weapons bill when they were in opposition. They deliberately blocked the PPP government from taking more effective actions to control the entry of illegal weapons into our country. At the time they saw benefits in not having the resources to better manage entry of illegal weapons in our country. Ramjattan should be ashamed and apologise to the people of Guyana, not shed crocodile tears.
The amount of time and resources the APNU/AFC has spent on going after the PPP leadership, rather than focusing on the challenges our people face, is disgustingly reinforcing the stereotype prevalent in developed countries that we are nothing but a banana republic, where tyrants and dictators humiliate and lock up their opponents. Granger and APNU/AFC have played up to this stereotype perfectly and almost two years into their administration, they are still preoccupied, spending time and resources on locking up their opponents. The problem is while they fiddle, the country is held hostage by criminals who feel emboldened because they see a friendly government, a government on their side. (Send comments to [email protected])
