Joint Services adequately resourced to protect Guyana’s border – Harmon

In light of growing concerns about the safety and security of citizens living and working along the border communities who complain of increasing attacks, particularly from the Venezuela-based Sindicato gang members, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon said that security forces were adequately equipped with resources to defend the border and protect citizens, but at the same time, they were struggling to determine the credibility of the reports they receive from those areas.
“I would say that the disciplined forces there – the Police and the Army – they have the resources to respond quickly to these reports … the important thing is to get

these reports to them as quickly as possible so that they can respond.” And this, according to Harmon, is proving to be a challenge.
The Minister of State told reporters at Thursday’s post-Cabinet press briefing that the security forces in the hinterland, particularly along the border communities, were struggling with regard to the time it takes for reports of attacks to get to them. He explained that often times when attacks occurred, the victims usually would make contact with relatives, friends, or even the media first before the security forces were able to get to the locations where the incident occurred to investigate.
“It requires time (for the reports) to get to the security forces where they are based, for them to respond and to go to deal with these matters… And so, while there’s some build-up of information in Georgetown, sometimes the Policemen and the Army at Eteringbang and those locations there, they are not told right away,” the Minister noted.
Added to this, Harmon, who also holds the portfolio of Secretary to the Defence Board, went on to say the security forces were faced with wastage of resources in verifying the reports of attacks that were being received.
“There are also sometimes nuisance reports where persons who actually have private scores to settle make these reports to security forces and have them going after persons… So, all of these are matters which when these reports come, you have to make a careful analysis of the information before you consider it to be what you call actionable intelligence upon which the forces can be deployed,” the State Minister noted.
Over recent months, there have been increased reports of attacks on Guyanese along the western border. In addition, there are also reports of the Venezuelan Army conducting exercises on its border with Guyana, raising security concerns among citizens here.
However, Minister Harmon explained that without any credible evidence, Guyana was unable to approach international authorities regarding the reported actions taken by the neighbouring country to undermine its territorial sovereignty.
“We cannot, as a nation, approach the international agencies, we cannot approach the United Nations with hearsay. We have to have credible information upon which we can file these reports, upon which we can dispatch note verbales, that is, things that are happening that affect the security of our borders and our citizens. But we have to have – and I want to emphasise this – credible information.
“Imagine you have a report and in the era of “fake news” and all these things that are going on, and you take that and you go to the United Nations to say look this is what is happening and then you have the other side saying something like this never occurred. So, we have to have credible reports that are verifiable reports about things occurring on our border,” Minister Harmon stressed.
Nevertheless, the Minister of State emphasised the importance of protecting the country’s border, and urged citizens in frontier communities to report incidents or attacks but to ensure that it is credible information and not hearsay.
“Anything that occurs on the border is a matter of concern and we must pay attention to it, because we cannot have activities which threaten the territorial integrity of Guyana that goes unreported,” Harmon noted.
Furthermore, in highlighting the importance of the safety and security of citizens along the border in light of these recent attacks, the Minister of State disclosed that the National Security Council earlier this week discussed the issue and coming out of that meeting was a high-level security visit to these border areas.
“A very high-level delegation has gone in there, commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel from the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), a senior superintendent from the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and representatives from the Ministry of Natural Resources… They’ve had specific briefings at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that basically deal with matters in relation to the border and the need for them to exercise caution in dealing with these matters.” He related.
Meanwhile, a Parliamentary Oversight Committee on the Security Sector team, led by Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan, recently visited the region. During that visit, the Committee, which comprises elements from both the Government and the Opposition, as well as personnel from the National Assembly, spoke with the ranks and the citizens in those border areas, assuring them that Central Government was addressing their concerns.
Of recent, President David Granger has been visiting frontier communities along the border with Venezuela and has announced several measures to beef up security in those areas, including an increased presence of Community Policing Group (CPG) members.