We’re defenceless sitting ducks!

(In honour of the late SN columnist Arthur Allan Fenty, who authored a col- umn on Fridays in this newspaper for 30 years, Stabroek News will be running some of his earliest contributions. This column was first published on July 26, 2002.)

Frankly Speaking, the caption above is just one way in which I can articulate my disgust, horror, understanding” and just plain fear, with respect to the implications of the (post-) Rose Hall criminal terrorism enacted this past Sunday and Monday.

It is my own considered, candid and frank opinion that - except for the country’s chief-of-staff (I meant the Head of the Joint Services), the Opposition Leader, the US Ambassador here, probably our own President and Prime Minister(?), the bandits’ relatives and the bandits themselves - no ordinary lawabiding, peace-loving citizen, and I suppose even particular crooks, can feel relatively safe and secure in this land of our birth. I’m not being facetious and my sincere apologies to the Minister of Home Affairs and our Commissioner of Police.

If it was not understood before, by some, is it not now obvious to all who can’t fool themselves, that we are a vulnerable, captive and defence-less lot at the mercy of the escapees, their expanded/ extended criminal network and their military, legal, political and communications strategists and sponsors?

That is the sad, simple lesson of poor Rose Hall! And there are many, scores of innocent siege-prone Rose Halls in Guyana. Are there not likely to be other Rose Halls?

Stabroek News on Tuesday and Wednesday, in separate, varied reports, carried these lines: “… the Corentyne Coast was yesterday reeling from the military-style precision attack…” and “Hendrax said that what the attack had shown was that there was no way Rose Hall could defend itself, since there was no type of security in the town ... the town was at the mercy of bandits …” My Stabroek also reports my Commissioner as having evidence that deportees are “contributing” to aspects of the murderous crime wave and that there were some instances, which he did not want to mention, where the task to capture the criminals was being made difficult”.

I repeat my support for the Police Force. I wring my hands in despair at the Commissioner’s veiled admission.

And since the purpose of this piece is not to interpret what he means - since many now appreciate his enemies within and those political and media mischief-makers he castigates - but to alarm somebody or authority into extreme remedial action, I shall not occupy this space or your time with all that you see, read and hear on the issue, captured elsewhere.

Suffice for me to stress the negative: the worst might be yet to come!! Did not certain identifiable politicians or their teleactivists make public predictions?

Pledges? To work towards the downfall of the elected government? Is it not likely that more deportees - with particular skills - are scheduled for arrival here? Could our forces really cope with what is now and what could be, if they are compromised from within, by renegades with programmed intentions?

As the political/criminal dissidents prepare, let me tell you my worst fears - all the while trusting that I’m dead wrong.

To be frank, I feel that it is kids’ play for bandits and rebels to overrun the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC); GTV, the Georgetown Prisons, State House and the Office of the President, to mention a few.

Are there solid, tried and tested security plans readied for these places?

Oh, I’m not supposed to know? O.K. I’m being ridiculous?

I really hope so. But I’m begging: before any relevant authorities upbraid me, please put those plans in place. Now!

Meanwhile, I know that I’m vulnerable and defenceless - as petty criminals are emboldened in the current enabling environment, as their senior “colleagues” stockpile small arms and as the nefarious collaboration ushers in some other Freedom Day (?)

I’m scared…

1 • Coincidentally, an excerpt from this month’s

Awake!: “Wherever we live, evil is just below the veneer of civilisation. We need police protection.

“Of course, most of us have heard about brutality, corruption, indifference, and abuse of power on the part of some police officers. The incidents vary in degree from country to country. But what would we do without the police? Isn’t it true that the police often provide valuable services?”

2. Even as I feel scared from time to time, knowing that the political/criminal/ urban/pseudo-intellectual spin-doctors brook no alternative views, I know I’m a member of the righteous, but of the silent, majority.I shall no longer smile or speak with those who train and/or harbour murderers.

3. Count the dead since Freedom Day February 23. What will you find?

4. I can no longer scoff at, as being premature, calls for a State of Emergency. But who will guarantee adherence to, enforcement of its provisions?

5. A light touch of levity? I mean the Sunday Stabroek’s Editorial which included “The grim news is that the ceiling has to come down, because neglect and the passage of time have taken their toll on the beams above it, and if these are not removed they could - perish the thought - collapse on our parliamentarians meeting in solemn conclave below.”

Perish the thought?

6. Great stuff! The Guyana Cook-up Show is four years old this weekend. Don’t miss it!

“Til next week!