Syndicatos and territorial integrity
This is not the first time that there have been reports of the presence in Guyana of members of a violent gang, reportedly comprising Venezuelans and persons of other nationalities from the hemisphere known as the Syndicatos, in Guyana’s territory in Region One. They appear to be serving either as enforcers for illegal goldmining operations, or as brigands in their own right, attacking and plundering mining operations inside Guyana and menacing Guyanese citizens residing in the Region One, in the bargain. We have been hearing, more recently, of incidents involving encounters ( how serious is unclear) between gang members and members of the local security forces and towards the end of last week we learnt of the capture by local police of four suspected Syndicato gang members, along with two Guyanese, in a hotel at Port Kaituma.
This latest incident is worrying for two reasons. First, because the reported circumstances of the capture of the alleged Syndicato gang members suggests that the criminal acts being perpetrated by the gang may be benefitting from the support of Guyanese. And secondly because the circumstance – which cannot be ignored by our own security forces – now compels a higher level of attention to the security implications of the problem by our local police and military. Here, it has to be said, that the mind-boggling dithering of successive political administrations with the issue of police reform that would allow for a stronger policing presence in our remote regions continues to afford free rein for these types, of what are in effect, invasions of our country.
Those considerations apart, there is the issue of what, up until now, is the factor of the impact of the pursuits of the Syndicatos on legitimate Guyanese gold-mining operations in the region. Our miners in far-flung areas of the country are no less entitled to the protection of the state than Guyanese living and working in the coastal regions, the impracticality of being able to guarantee the same level of security, notwithstanding.
It should be noted at this juncture that as far as we are told, the Syndicatos are simply violent criminals, gold-seekers mostly, whose preoccupation includes serving as enforcers for mostly illegal gold-mining operations as well as simply effecting hostile and murderous invasions of legal mining operations. This newspaper reported recently on incidents in which the Syndicatos had been targeting gold- mining operations in Venezuela itself, that circumstance having apparently now become more lucrative for them on account of what we are told is Venezuela’s increasing pursuit of revenues from gold given the known challenges of its oil industry.
Under different circumstances and since the Syndicatos appear not to be mindful as to which side of the border they inflict their criminal enforcement measures, the appropriate response would have been a bilateral one, that is to say, the application of remedies arising out collaboration between the authorities in Georgetown and Caracas. The timbre of relations between Guyana and Venezuela at this time, to say nothing about the extant compelling distractions facing President Maduro’s administration, renders that option out of the question.
Intelligence available to the Syndicatos would cause them to be well aware of the situation between Guyana and Venezuela arising out of the latter’s territorial claim. They would be aware too that the circumstances make serious bilateral measures between the authorities in Guyana and Venezuela to push back their criminal operations unlikely, to say the least, at this time. In this regard they are enjoying more or less a ‘free ride’.
Guyana, as it happens cannot afford – from either a national security or an economic perspective – to turn a blind eye to the marauding of the Syndicatos so that we now find ourselves, increasingly, it seems, pressing our security forces - members of both the Guyana Defence Force and the
Guyana Police Force - into service to push back what, in effect is an ‘invading’ force that threatens the country’s territorial integrity.
The timing of all this, when critical engagements relating to the legal defence of Guyana’s rejection of Venezuela’s longstanding territorial claim draw ever closer, cannot be overlooked nor can the seeming circumstance that, according to recent reports, the Syndicators would appear to benefit from the services of Guyanese-born co-conspirators.
One of the time-worn axioms of Guyana’s position on Venezuela’s territorial claim has always been that the domestic political divide is always submerged beneath the imperative of unified position on the issue of our territorial integrity. Arising out of the episode that followed the country’s March 2, 2020 general elections, the customary political differences appear to have become sharper at a time when, albeit in a different kind of way, our territorial integrity would appear to be under threat from interlopers from the west. This is something which the country’s presently ‘feuding’ political forces might wish to give some measure of thought to at this time.