Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Sep 07, 2014 APNU Column
A Partnership for National Unity, in light of the PPPC administration’s failure to suppress maritime piracy, is obliged to reprint this column that was first published by Kaieteur News on 11th November 2012, nearly two years ago.
Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee usually has little to say about the plague of piracy and lack of human safety that continue to hurt this country’s fishermen. President Donald Ramotar is now more likely to discuss maritime piracy with Minister of Public Works Robeson Benn and Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, than with the minister whom he made responsible for public security.
Guyana’s fishing industry is one of the most important but it receives the least attention and the least protection from the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Fishing industry operates nearly 1,250 artisanal boats. Fishing employs over 15,000 persons directly and indirectly. Fishing generates about three percent of GDP. Fish exports average about 17,000 metric tonnes with a value of $10B.
Fishermen, however, have been crying out for help in vain over the last six years of Rohee’s tenure of office. Dozens of families of fishermen in East Coast Demerara village of Mon Repos – a fishing community – protested in early February against attacks by pirates. Leonard Jettoo, a fisherman and the Chairman of the Anti-Piracy Committee, is reported in the newspapers to have said: “We fed up …fed up. Nobody care about we fishermen. That is how all a’we feel. Pirate attacking we left, right and centre and nobody a seh nothing. We can’t get no security. “When we left fuh go out pun sea, is we one and God alone. No boat nah pass fuh see if we alright, nothing…”
Another resident of Mon Repos added: “..dem vex wid this government. All dem giving we is promising. Dem a talk ‘bout rice, sugar here, farmer there and is as if fishermen nah exist. We family frighten every time we left fuh go out a sea, but wha we go do. That is all we know. We can’t go tek office wuk”.
Fishermen from Meadow Bank, East Bank Demerara, reacted angrily to attacks on 15 boats off the Essequibo Coast. They picketed the Office of the President on 9th February this year [2012]. They stated that they would not settle for a meeting with anyone but the President, since they have met with many officials already and nothing of worth came of those meetings. They said: “We want meet with Donald he self. We nah trust nobody else ‘cause dem a lie. We nah want minister, pandit, priest, or no office body. We want de president fuh he hear wid he own two ears how all a’we feel.”
The fishermen were quickly summoned to a meeting with President Donald Ramotar to avoid embarrassment to the administration. Ramotar promised intervention at the level of the Cabinet and assured that “no stone will be left unturned” to “put an end to this lawless activity.” He said: “We are putting a response in place, a response to what is taking place, and I hope that this will be implemented immediately, because this thing (piracy) we have to stamp it out immediately.”
That was that!
The PPPC administration, still in talking mode, convened a ‘Consultation’ at the International Convention Centre at Liliendaal. Stakeholders in the fishing industry met with the Minister of Public Works Robeson Benn, Minister of Agriculture Leslie Ramsammy, Department of Fisheries officials and representatives of the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard, Guyana Police Force, Maritime Administration Department and Search and Rescue Centre, Fishermen’s Co-ops and the Trawler Association, to discuss the security of the industry among other things.
The PPPC administration, despite the talk, however, has not provided the resources or recruited the personnel to curb the crime. Hence, piracy persists.
Pravinchandra Deodat, Chairman of the Upper Corentyne Fishermen’s Cooperative Society, exposed Guyanese fishermen who attack their fellow fishermen while at sea. Deodat told a newspaper that he was aware that some Guyanese boat owners have been encouraging their crews to rob and beat other fishermen. The pirates, he said, are not strangers, but actual local fishermen. As recently as this month, November, two fishermen were reported to have been killed by pirates.
The PPPC administration and the Minister of Home Affairs have always neglected the security of the industry. The administration’s traditional cool attitude to contraband and its irresolute law enforcement along the entire coastland “especially on the Corentyne and Essequibo coasts which are notorious for fuel and beer smuggling and illegal migration “ opened a new frontier for enterprising pirates. Many of them, as Deodat said, are rogue fishermen who know their way about the rivers and coastal waters.
Soon after he was appointed minister in September 2006, Rohee used to go through the motions of meeting delegations of aggrieved fishermen from East Coast Demerara and the Corentyne and Essequibo Coasts. The fishermen quickly realised that the meetings were pointless and that nothing was being done to counter piracy. Responses to the threat and responsibility for security were then shunted to the Ministry of Agriculture and then to the Ministry of Public Works. This ignored the fact that piracy was a public security and law-enforcement problem. If anything, pirates seemed to have been encouraged by the absence of enforcement.
Piracy persists because the PPPC administration is unwilling to spend money to acquire the aviation, communication, maritime and surveillance assets which it knows are necessary to deal with this crime.
The PPPC administration, in place of effective action to tackle piracy, did introduce the Hijacking and Piracy Bill that prescribes the death penalty for murder committed during the act. But what good is the law without law enforcement?
Rohee himself declared then that piracy was challenging the country’s security and the Bill would send a “strong message” to the pirates. Rohee’s ‘strong message’ has fallen on the pirates’ deaf ears. No one is listening. There continues to be at least one serious piracy attack every month.
The PPPC administration has not evinced the interest, intention or inclination to do anything to make our maritime zone safer and to protect the lives and livelihood of the fishermen who make their living there.
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