OR ELSE
Peeping Tom
Kaieteur News
December 23, 2006
What happens if the Guyana Defence Force does not find the remainder of the missing army weapons? What happens to the principle of accountability?
The President of Guyana, who is also the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, has, in two recent addresses to soldiers, made it clear to the Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force that he wanted those weapons recovered. And in his most recent address, he reiterated that the army should do whatever is necessary to recover the missing weapons.
What the President, however, refuses to do is to state what will happen should the weapons not be found. What the President refuses to state is, “Find the missing weapons or else….”
The army has been errant in losing the weapons. Yet, approaching one year since these weapons went missing, no one has, so far, been charged for their disappearance, that has created the greatest national security threat in the history of this country.” Close to one year is approaching, and only now are we learning about the possibility of charges being laid against those held to be negligent. Close to one year, and there has been no commission of inquiry into the missing weapons. Yet, Guyana expects friendly countries to continue to offer assistance in the areas of military cooperation.
I am saying it is the height of political negligence for us to have an incident of this magnitude, and yet there has been no commission of inquiry held. I am sure there would have, however, been an internal investigation by the military, and I am sure that the police would have done their own investigations.
The failure to have a commission of inquiry into this incident constitutes an act of political negligence. Why is it that the security of this nation should be so imperiled, and yet there has been no commission of inquiry? It is not that it is believed that these missing weapons have been shipped to Mars or have ended up at the bottom of the ocean. No, these weapons, it is suspected, are in the hands of dangerous criminal elements, as was evident from the Berbice bank robberies, and all the other cases in which some of the cache was recovered.
One would have assumed that, for a government that has placed such a great stress on transparency, accountability, and democracy, there would have been a greater commitment to the mechanisms that entrench such high political values.
One such mechanism, handed down to us by the British and still found within our laws, is the commission of inquiry, a fact finding process that has been found to be extremely useful.
Colonialism was generally an oppressive system. However, a number of positives came out of that system. One of those positives was the use of mechanisms such as commissions of inquiry. Throughout our history, we can point to many such commissions that the British Government implemented, which brought significant reform to the country upon the publication of the findings of those inquiries.
With the exception of Cheddi Jagan, all of our political leaders have been reluctant to liberally appoint commissions of inquiry to investigate some of the major crises faced by the country. Burnham was reluctant to expose his regime to any form of democratic scrutiny; but Hoyte showed real courage it at least having a commission of inquiry into the purchase of a power barge.
When Cheddi Jagan took office, one of his first acts was to appoint a commission of inquiry into the riots that took place following the results of the 1992 elections. Why the PPP has failed to make public that report is quite a mystery.
Cheddi also initiated a commission of inquiry into a sea-defense project. The findings of that report were made public. But Cheddi did not live long enough to keep the practice growing.
The political inexperience of Bharrat Jagdeo is no more evident that by the fact that, under his watch, some of the country's most tragic incidents have occurred, and yet there has only been three commissions of inquiry. The first was forced by international pressure, and dealt with whether the Minister of Home Affairs had links to death squads. The results found that there was no evidence to link the minister to the work of death squads.
The second was an inquiry into the breach of the conservancy, and the third was the commission of inquiry into the jailbreak. Only three in an ongoing term filled with scandals and crises.
However, there have been other incidents, since 1998, which have cried out for commissions of inquiry. We have, for example, had the 55-day Guyana Public Service Strike, in which there was violence; there was the law books scandal; the wildlife scandal; the dolphin scandal; the remigration scandal (I am pleased to have been told recently that there is now a possibility that the investigation into this matter will be re-opened); the floods of 2005 and 2006; the crime wave of 2003-2005; and now the matter of the missing army weapons.
I have wondered why it is that the PNCR has never tabled a motion in the National Assembly asking for a debate on this subject. One would have expected that, when it was first discovered that the weapons were missing, any responsible opposition would have moved for such a debate as a matter of urgency. I now call on the Alliance for Change to call for such a debate.
I find no pleasure in the President having to call on the Chief of Staff to ensure that the missing weapons are found. The principle of accountability is not served unless the Chief of Staff is told in no uncertain manner that unless those weapons are found, heads are going to roll.