The loudest voice in our ear stokes fear!

Sep 08, 2019 AFC Column, Features / Columnists, News

---

We are paying attention to the expressions of fear and skepticism about the efficacy of our new Surveillance System with the network of CCTV Cameras installed in the city. We are told that the cameras are being installed in known ‘hot spots’ both in the heart of the city and in peripheral communities.
The systems of crime detection traditionally used in Guyana have been mainly manual, backed up by a database of known criminals. Lately policing has been boosted by several new initiatives, including vastly improved community relationships between residents and district police officers. This is nothing to scoff at. Those relations used to be very contentious, very hateful and unhelpful, and criminal activities thrived.
The police now participate in community sports, cultural events and even ICT and Robotics training programmes.
Crime statistics in Guyana had reached its highest in the decade following the infamous 2002 jailbreak, and many police officers fell in the spree that followed. That John King ballad became a ‘wail’ of an anthem for Guyanese in those years. One verse says:

Rose up early this morning
To the sound of crying
Another mother shedding her tears, oh Jah
Why all the pain and suffering?
Why all the senseless killing?
Could it be that nobody cares? Oh no
So many sons lost in the slaughter
Blood running in the streets like water
A gun in hand knows no friend (oh no)
Warmongers selling death in my land
Getting rich off the souls of we children
Can you tell me when will it end?
How many more, Jah …

It was a sad time.
Crime statistics have dropped considerably since then, but not all the way down. Citizens are still susceptible to major and petty crimes, but the Guyana Police Force (GPF) is going global, implementing many initiatives at once, all with the same overriding objectives:-

(1) To dissuade criminals and would-be criminals from acting
2) To create a city in which citizens, the business community and services providers feel safe.

This means that the GPF and all arms of the Joint Services are now working together as an inter-connected whole to keep the peace, nab/deter the criminals, to protect and serve. It also acknowledges that random crimes will occur in random places, at random times, even under the eyes of the surveillance cameras.
No one wants to see even a hint of evidence that Guyana could sink down into the black hole of base criminality and rampant extra-judicial killing that had taken over the city in the early years of the millennium – 2002-2009 – while the PPP ruled the land.
Since the whole world has gone digital, and every option to identify, fight and deter crimes is computerized, Guyana went for a Surveillance System complete with a Command Centre to complement the Safe City initiative. This high-tech system has many benefits for law enforcement and for citizens, and it is just one component of the National Broadband Expansion Programme which is funded by a Concessionary Loan of $37.6M from the China EXIM Bank.
The main deliverables of this nationwide Broadband Expansion project are:-
• The Safe City Surveillance System which will enable law enforcement to access critical information in real time, and improve response times to emergencies
• Expanding the national ICT networks (LTE, fibre optic, V-SAT) into the hinterland to ensure that our citizens, wherever they live, have equal access to information, education, healthcare, business, etc.
Sometimes, it could become difficult to watch our people ridicule any new development that they could only benefit from. Some folks hear only the conspiracy theories. The loudest voices in their ears only stoke their deepest fears of the unspeakable things that have been whispered to them in their bottom houses, things that are coloured by politics.
Some folks have taken to the media to express their fear that the contractor, Huawei Technologies, could pull information on Guyanese citizens, e.g. dates of birth, photographs, email addresses and other personal data, from the Surveillance System and make it available to China. They say they fear that the facial recognition software would invade their privacy, and that the data bank would be subject to ‘abuse’.
Sometimes those fears are expressions of the PPP’s fears and theories. One newspaper contributor expressed his fear last week that the ‘cluster of cameras in front of PPP’s headquarters’ could be used for political purposes.
But we will wait for the responsible authority, the Ministry of Public Telecommunications, to explain the surveillance system, the policies and standard operating procedures.
This Network Expansion Programme (in progress) expands cross-country and involves installation of V-Satellite dishes in inland and riverain communities, e.g. the Pomeroon and hinterland regions where telephone/cellular service and adequate power supply are absent or insufficient. The Broadband project supplies all of these needs – Internet connectivity through re-purposed LTE towers and Satellite dishes; and provision of green electrical power via solar panels.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

---

---