Former President David Granger has expressed alarm at the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/)C administration’s apparent apathetic attitude to the worsening national security situation. Speaking on his weekly programme – Public Interest – he called attention to the PPP/C’s obsession with campaigning for the forthcoming Local Government Elections mainly on the coastland compared to its inattentiveness to deteriorating human safety and border security in the hinterland.
Mr. Granger iterated his astonishment that praise can be poured on the Police Force for “…cleaning medians, painting roadways, building houses, delivering hampers [and] cleaning drains…” while the Force itself readily confessed to its failure to respond to hinterland security threats owing to vast distances to be covered, language barriers, narco-trafficking and illegal migration. As a result, threats to security – arising from arson, armed robbery, assault, murder, narco-trafficking and people-trafficking (backtracking) – continue to be rampant.
The former President recommended that the Police Force change its preoccupation with peripheral municipal chores and pay greater attention to its core law-enforcement functions, especially in the hinterland and coastland which have always been notorious zones of banditry. The country’s almost 2,500 km borders − with Brazil, Venezuela and Suriname and the fourth frontier – the almost 460 km Atlantic coastline – make patrolling and policing daunting but should not be abandoned simply because they are difficult.
Admitting that Guyana has only limited capability to totally eliminate cross-border crime at this time, Mr. Granger recalled that the APNU+AFC coalition administration devised four new hinterland Police divisions based in the four capital towns – at Bartica, Lethem, Mabaruma and Mahdia; established the National Anti-Narcotics Agency; deployed companies of the People’s Militia in the hinterland and conducted ‘Operation Armadillo” to protect frontier villages.
It was his considered opinion that the country needs a comprehensive and coherent national security strategy to ensure human safety, eliminate people- and narcotics-trafficking and to combat organized crime, particularly narcotics-trafficking and people-trafficking. The Police Force should be provided with the personnel and equipment, including horses, all-terrain vehicles and river boats it needs to suppress lawlessness in the hinterland.
The former President feels that national security can be assured best by the more intelligent deployment of the Police Force to detect and deter criminality. These policies can ensure the development of Guyana as a safe, secure and strong state and guarantee every citizen ‘a good life’.
