Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 14, 2012 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev
Responding to APNU spokesperson Mark Archer’s call for the police force to be ‘reformed’, I pointed out that he had neglected to mention a most pertinent aspect of any reform that would be effective in Guyana: the need to make the force representative of our population. Mr. Archer then retorted, “However you can have an ethnically balanced force and still have the same type of scenarios that Mr. Dev was at pains to recount in his Sunday column.”
Of course you can, but isn’t it now conceded in all multi-ethnic countries that Forces more representative of the various elements of the communities are the most effective ones? Because of that fact, didn’t the London Metropolitan Police set targets for Black recruits some years ago? Didn’t several police forces in the US, including New York and Los Angeles, also embark on that path? But more to our point didn’t our own Disciplined Forces Commission, with Brigadier David Granger, also so recommend for Guyana?
The hurdle now paraded against implementing this policy is the rhubarb that “Indians do not join the Force”: in tones that imply this reluctance arises from some genetically-inherited quality. We do not intend to expand on the historical bases for the Indian aversion to the Force, but simply want to point out that PPP Minister of Home Affairs, Balram Singh Rai, single-handedly proved between 1960 and 1962 that this could be overcome.
But what is troubling about Mr. Archer’s response is that he dismisses my concerns as that of an “Indian activist”, implying that Indian concerns are not also Guyanese concerns. And with no sense of irony can say, “as a black man in Guyana”, that “in most poor African communities the Police are seen as the “enemy”. Isn’t this also a Guyanese concern? Is it any way different in Indian or Amerindian communities, poor or rich? If we’re going to ‘fix” the police force, why don’t we start on the right footing – especially if that footing has already been identified and accepted unanimously by parliament?
It is possible that being out of Guyana at the time, Mr. Archer does not know that when ROAR was launched in January 1999 as “Rise, Organise and Rally” against crime, we issued a thoroughgoing analysis of the GPF and made numerous recommendations, that were submitted by myself and Malcolm Harripaul to the then Minister of Home Affairs. It was never just about ethnic proportionality.
We also recommended, “Decentralising the Force”. We showed that unlike the police forces of most low crime jurisdictions, which were decentralised, the GPF was heavily centralised due to the historical imperative of the colonial power to suppress rather than to protect the local population.
The complaint in 2008, for instance, that the Bartica Police resources were totally inadequate to deal with the massacre, resonates in all police stations outside of Georgetown. It is rooted in the concentration of all police strength at the centre. We suggested in 1999: “The centralised structure of the GPF has led to widespread ineffectiveness and dislocations.
Administrative effectiveness is not the sole criterion of police competence, which should rather be the greatest effort in the promotion of the Rule of Law and entrenching citizens’ security. We recommend that the GPF be split into six separate forces: Metro-GT, Demerara, Berbice, Essequibo, Rupununi and a Central Force (like a FBI). Each Force would have its own Commissioner and its own command structure. The Central Force would oversee a central Forensic lab, the Anti-drug Unit, Intelligence and international co-ordination.”
Recommendation 3: Supplementing the Force: The first part proposed “Community Policing” on which the administration has since happily embarked, enthusiastically.
This effort must be deepened and broadened. Secondly, we proposed the resuscitation of a People’s Militia – which we later dubbed a “Peoples’ Home Guard”.
The Home Guard would have all the training as regular army units and in all regards, would constitute a reserve for the Army – and a recruitment pool. They would have the wherewithal to discourage the high-powered banditry that has become endemic in our country.
Recommendation 4: Streamlining the Force: We pointed out that, “Only approximately 30% of the GPF are engaged in crime detection and prevention. We elaborated on all the various non-policing elements that could be farmed out – especially to civilian staff. Does immigration really qualify as a “policing” task? Shouldn’t each Police Force have its own Prosecutor’s Office manned by high calibre, qualified permanent staff? To those who may widen their eyes at the apparent massive swelling of the Force that the recommendations apparently entail, the streamlining would free-up spending for real police work.
Of course, just having an ethnically representative GPF would solve all our policing problems. But to create such a force would be the first step to reverse the tradition of politicians, using an ethnically skewed force to buttress their ethnically divisive political mobilisation.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
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