…to national security
You careful readers out there will notice your Eyewitness used “scare quotes” over “threat” in his caption. That doesn’t mean he’s necessarily doubting Prezzie and the authorities who assured that there was, in fact, such a “threat” – causing them to yank our men in green from their barracks to join our men in blue (khaki?) in the streets. He’s merely signalling that the word “threat” was the one actually used by the authorities.
Now cynics immediately snickered at what they considered to be a rather transparent ploy to distract the citizens huddled in fear at the unfolding crime wave. The government, after all, to a large extent owes its incumbency to their assurance that if it’s one thing they knew, it was “security”. Their word. They pointed to the presence of all those be-medalled military advisers and ministers and heads of CoI’s as proof positive of their “security” bona fides. But yet, here crime is washing over the country like a tsunami, while the best the government could do is to issue a tsunami of statistics! That didn’t do much for their image… not to mention the confidence of the huddled masses.
Even though they mightn’t actually be followers of Lenin, your Eyewitness can just see Prezzie hunkering down with his security brain trust (at Camp Ayanganna after a Cabinet meeting?) trying to answer Lenin’s seminal question, “What is to be done?” Ahhh… what would your Eyewitness give to’ve been a fly on THAT wall!! If the “threat” was the Venezuelans, he can just imagine the army brass raring to put into practice all that military might they displayed in Operation Greenheart! Your Eyewitness got tingles when he remembered the “lizard crawl” he learnt as a kid in school back in the eighties to take on the Venezuelan when they were rattling their sabres then. Not one spring cuirass!!
If the threat was armed gangs like during the “troubles” – which, Prezzie explained to Parliament, exploded full blown with no connection to politics, much less the PNC – then he can just hear ex-COP Felix promising to “head them off” as he did during the Agricola Massacre. But alas, it was most likely just the threat of another Prison Riot and burning of mattresses in the offing, since all that came out of the “red level” threat announcement was the joint forces raiding the jails and seizing cell phones and some “shivs”. That’s “jail-made knives” not the cricketer!
Remember Security Minister Ramjattan’s last visit to the Camp Street Jail? After he caved in to all their demands, they promised they’d be “good boys”!!!
…at the borders
The Security Minister was also in the news on the porous border issue which he claimed to have “solved” a couple of weeks ago at the Caribbean Basin Security meet with the US. At that time, he assured the nation that after his proposal, the US was going to deploy some “unmanned aircraft” – read “drones” – in Guyana, complete with their base, which would be a hundred miles from the border.
After your Eyewitness pointed out some obstacles in his pie-in-the-sky proposal – even the US can’t support such a programme on its Mexican border because of costs, Ramjattan seemed to’ve backed off.
Asked about guns shipped across our borders, he now mentioned some “Police outposts” along the borders. Now he knows we can’t even fill our quota of Policemen for our coastal needs… how’s he “gonna” (his favourite Americanism!!) get them into the jungle. Since he obviously reads your Eyewitness, why’s he avoiding the proposal to deploy our soldiers to do the job they’re mandated and trained to do?
Like protecting our borders?
…to electoral stability
Now that Steve Surujbally’s signalled that the politicians won’t have him to kick around every five years, there’ll be weeping and waiting and gnashing of teeth!
Let’s see them agree on his replacement!!
