Ramjattan must come to grips with the big ticket crime-fighting issues

Dear Editor, My attention was drawn to a recent very candid interview by Mr Khemraj Ramjattan, the nation’s Public Security Minister.

In the interview, Mr Ramjattan claimed that “the decrease in crime is due to the multiple approaches by the Guyana Police Force (GPF).” The multiple approaches the Minister outlined were increased community confidence, greater professionalism in the Force and the provision of adequate resources.

In case Mr Ramjattan did not know, these are not new approaches; on the contrary, every administration since independence has, as a matter of policy, encouraged the GPF to adopt and operationalize these approaches. Consequently, these approaches have been ongoing for a number of years. The extent of their success cumulatively is difficult to measure.

If it is that Mr Ramjattan has now discovered these age old approaches then his ‘discovery’ speaks candidly of the level of collaboration in areas of research and communication between his office and the senior management of the GPF. I suggest that Mr Ramjattan assign three UG students to each of the three areas with the task of researching and documenting what has been achieved in each of the three approaches over the last ten years at a minimum. He might be shocked by the results of the assignments.

In the said interview, Mr Ramjattan took a swipe at his predecessor stating that “... since becoming Minister he has made it his duty not to micromanage the police force.” Yet in the same breath, he announces proudly, that he is “taking a no nonsense approach to police professionalism” and that he will “deal swiftly and condignly with rogue cops in the GPF.”

“If they want to take bribe we will catch them in sting operations,” he boasted.

So the Minister is now the judge, jury and executioner when it comes to disciplinary matters within the GPF. By his own candid admission, Mr Ramjattan has dispensed with the Police Disciplinary Act, the Office of Professional Responsibly (OPR) and the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) and has launched his own disguised investigations within the GPF.

Mr Ramjattan claims candidly that, “crime is continuously decreasing and that much more needs to be done in fighting crime.” But he was not candid enough to reveal what is the “much more” that needs to be done, though everyone knows that the first part of his statement is misleading while the latter part is generally expected of any police force.

The daily newspapers continue to be replete with reports of gun crimes in our country. A pattern of such occurrences has long been established beyond reasonable doubt. The Public Security Minister made reference to the ‘clear up rate’ of serious crimes and homicides by the GPF. However, what the Minister failed to mention was that even though there was a slight decrease in serious crimes between January to June 2016 and the corresponding period for 2017 only just over half of the serious crimes committed across all police divisions were cleared up.

And ‘A’ Division continues to be the most troublesome division, where robberies with the use of a firearm continue to persist.

In addition, Mr. Ramjattan did not disclose the fact that presently two gun crimes are committed each day in Guyana and that the clear up rate for gun crimes leaves much to be desired. Moreover, the anecdotal evidence that guns and ammunition were pouring through our borders mainly from Brazil at the time when the PPP/C was in office seems to have lost its sex appeal now that the APNU+AFC has taken its place in government.

As a former Minister of Home Affairs and chair of the Task Force on illegal firearms and illicit drugs, operatives in our intelligence community would report at meetings that “buckets of rounds and bags filled with small arms were being smuggled into our country from Brazil, yet when these very operatives were asked to produce the concrete evidence even by way of photographs, etc, they had none. They nevertheless expected the Minister to believe year after year what was basically hearsay.

Gun crimes continue to be prevalent in ‘A’ Division of the GPF therefore my question is, if guns and ammunition are penetrating through our border with Brazil how come they are finding their way to ‘A’ Division without being detected en route?

Not a single police station or outpost in ‘F’ Division has coughed up a cache of firearms or buckets of rounds entering our jurisdiction from Brazil. Yet, if indeed, the weapons do penetrate our southern border it is assumed that these weapons pass under the noses of the police all the way undetected to Georgetown where they are easily available. How is this possible?

I have always maintained that equal attention needs to be paid to our ports by law enforcement officers in collaboration with our intelligence operatives, since for the traffickers, it is much easier for them logistically to target the city ports rather than to procure and transport their trade all the way from Brazil to the city.

A recent report by Amnesty International shows that the US is the largest market for and exporter of illegal firearms, not Brazil. Leakage of arms from the US occurs regularly, so much so that some shipments go astray or end up in the wrong hands, either before leaving the US or while in-transit to the end-user.

The just concluded meetings of the Guyana-Brazil Frontiers Committee and Group on Counsular Cooperation which met recently at Lethem were the appropriate fora to share actionable intelligence on suspected arms trafficking between Guyana and Brazil. The supply and demand of small arms is a serious matter Mr Ramjattan should be concerned about this rather than the nuts and bolts issues which he tends to gets hot and bothered over.

And Mr Joe Harmon should check his facts on drugs leaving Guyana before making statements just to make his administration look good. To say that cocaine leaving Guyana destined for other countries is something of the past is disingenuous to say the least. While Guyana remains on the books as a transit country for drugs there have been several reported cases of drugs leaving this country as recently as last week when cocaine shipped from Guyana and Suriname ended up in Jamaica.

The crime fighters who sit at the weekly meetings of the National Security Council chaired by the President should encourage Mr Ramjattan to come to grips with the big ticket crime-fighting issues. And the council must help him formulate the appropriate policies to guide the police in their efforts to serve and protect.

Yours faithfully, Clement J Rohee Former Minister of Home Affairs