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STABROEK NEWS | LAW AND ORDER | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2010


 
   









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Six years after Justice Ian Chang handed over the Report of the Disciplined Forces Commission to
Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran on 6th May 2004, the motion to approve it was
unanimously passed by the National Assembly on 10th June 2010.

The Reportƞs leisurely, six-year passage through several special select committees was not unrelated to
the public safety problems in the country and the predicament of the security forces today. The longer it
took to approve the Report and implement its recommendations, the worse criminal violence became.

Prime Minister Samuel Hinds after swearing in members of the Disciplined Forces Commission in 2003

The Commission had its origins in the dreadful days of the troubles on the East Coast which started in
2002. President BharratJagdeo and opposition leader Mr Robert Corbin agreed to establish the Disciplined
Forces Commission with a mandate to inquire into the Guyana Police Force, Guyana Defence Force,
Guyana Prison Service and Guyana Fire Service in order to identify their shortcomings and to recommend
remedies to respond to the public safety crisis.

The President, in accordance with the National Assemblyƞs Resolution No. 21 of 2003 of the 16th May
2003 for the constitution and appointment of a Disciplined Forces Commission, appointed Ian Chang,
Justice of Appeal as Chairman; and Charles Ramson; Anil Nandlall; David Granger and Ms Maggie Beirne,
as members. MsBeirne resigned from the Commission and, on 14th January 2004, Professor Harold
Alexander Lutchman was appointed in her place.

The Commission had a broad mandate Ơto examine any matter relating to the Public Welfare, Public
Safety, Public Order, Defence or Security including the Structure and Composition of the Disciplined
Forces and make recommendations, generally, with a view to promoting their greater efficiency, and
giving effect to the need in the public interest that the composition of the Disciplined Forces take account
of the ethnic constituents of the population.ơ

The four forces into which the Commission was required to inquire were the
Guyana Police Force, the Guyana Defence Force, the Guyana Prison Service and the Guyana Fire Service,
the heads of which were the Commissioner, Chief of Staff, Director and Chief Fire Officer, respectively.

The Commission started its work on 1st July 2003 and presented its final Report to the Speaker of the
National Assembly on 6th May 2004. The Report was then laid before the National Assembly on 17th May
and was accepted unanimously. The Report, despite the gravity of the public safety situation at that time
and the urgency of the Commissionƞs recommendations, was then sent to a special select committee of
the National Assembly. This, however, was not established until 4th November 2004 with a mandate to
report to the National Assembly in four months. The committee dawdled for sixteen months instead.

As a way of wasting time, it then proceeded to invite the same chiefs of the security forces who had
already given ample oral evidence to the Commission to repeat their views to the Committee. The
Committee, faced with the dissolution of the Eighth Parliament on 2nd May 2006, however, never got
around to presenting its interim report to the Assembly. The Ninth Parlia-ment was convened on 28th
September 2006 but the National Assembly waited over one year to establish a new committee to restart
to examine the Report.

The President promulgates his counter-crime plan in 2002

The Guyana Government by that time fell under the spell of diplomatic duress by the United Kingdom
Government. It was required ƛ as one of the conditionalities of the DfID-supported interim memorandum
on the Security Sector Reform Action Plan 2007-2011 that the two sides signed on 10th August 2007 ƛ to
table a motion in the National Assembly by 31st October 2007 to establish a new special select committee
to examine the same Report of the Disciplined Forces Commission, among other things.

The National Assembly eventually managed to appoint that Committee on 26thJuly 2008. The Committee
requested an extension of the deadline for the submission of its final report to 15th December 2008 but
seemed unable to complete its work by that date. The National Assembly finally approved a further
extension of the deadline for the submission of its report to 6th August 2009. And so the years went by.

Neither administration nor opposition members of the National Assembly seem to be concerned about the
fact that their procrastination has been costly. They seemed unable to make the connection between the
high crime rate in the country during this period ƛ when some of the most bloody mass killings were
occurring ƛ and the non-implementation of the Commissionƞs recommendations to reform the Forces to
correct their shortcomings.

The Commission, in the final analysis, made 164 recommendations to reform the Disciplined Forces. It
found that Guyana faced transnational dangers to national security and public safety posed by narco-
trafficking, weapons-smuggling, money-laundering, back-tracking (illegal migration) and terrorism.
National and international developments had impacted on the operations of the Disciplined Forces but
commensurate changes in legislation, organisation and administration in all such areas seem not to have
been made. Given their current resources, composition and capability, the Forces seemed unable or
unwilling to confront social disorder and internal disturbance. Public safety and national security suffered
as a consequence.

The Commission recommended that a National Security Sector Reform Pro-gramme ƛ which methodically
addressed the deficiencies of the Forces and which would enable them to cope with these evolutionary
challenges ƛ should be considered for implementation. As part of their responsibility, therefore, it was
recommended that Ministers should have their technical officers prepare long-term strategic plans for
each of the Forces and that ministries should be configured to allow for the periodic monitoring and
review of those plans.

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Seventy-one recommendations concerned the Guyana Police Force. The Commission recommended, with
regard to manpower, that the Police Force should aim at achieving greater ethnic diversity without
employing a quota system ƛ which would be constitutionally offensive. To achieve this, ethnically-diverse
recruitment teams should be employed as openly and extensively as possible.

It recommended also that urgent consideration should be given to the examination of the three cadet
schemes to determine whether any changes should be made to them and what should be done to place
the selection and training of cadets on a regular basis.

A revitalised cadetship scheme could be canvassed among successful secondary school and university
graduates and a Police Academy should be established, with at least one intake of cadets every year,
owing to the need to produce well-educated officers.

With regard to oversight of the Force, the establishment of a Commission on Public Safety in the National
Assembly, to which the Minister of Home Affairs would be answerable, was recommended. Matters of
priority for such a Commission could include the police annual report and the collection and dissemination
of crime statistics. The Police Complaints Authority should be provided with an investigative team
consisting of trained police investigators who would be responsible and accountable directly to the
Authority. The Authorityƞs independence should be maintained by providing adequate administrative and
financial resources

The Coronersƞ Act should be reviewed in its entirety to achieve its high ideals and remedy its current
deficiencies and application. A Coronerƞs office should be administratively established to hold inquests or
inquiries where the magistrate or magistrates of any Magisterial District cannot do so. The Office should
be staffed with magistrates with national jurisdiction and should fall under the administrative
superintendence of the Chief Magistrate. Coroners should be provided with investigative resources to
reduce their dependence on Police investigations. This would enable them to conduct independent
investigations.

During training, emphasis should be placed on the use of the minimum force necessary; this is always to
be preferred, even in confrontations with armed and dangerous criminals. Appropriate instruction and
training should be given to policemen about the circumstances under which they may resort to the use of
the firearm.
There was need to legitimise the practice of community policing within some legislative framework so as
to ensure that community-policing functions are institutionalised, strictly supervised and monitored. The
membership of community policing groups should be carefully screened for induction into the Rural
Constabulary and a proper system of training and instruction relevant to community policing and other
rural constabulary duties should be implemented for those selected and appointed.

Further, it was recommended that attention should be paid to strengthening the Forceƞs investigative
capabilities and to the establishment of a sound national criminal intelligence system.







The Commission paid special attention to the capabilities of the Defence Forceƞs Air Corps and Coast
Guard. It recommended that there should be an increase in manpower, if possible, within the present
calendar year [2004] and that the Defence Board should seriously review the support given to the Coast
Guard. There should be adequate arrangements for recruitment and training of pilots and engineers and
for the retention in service of all skilled personnel.

It was proposed also that there should be increased operational employment of aviation resources in
coastal, maritime and border surveillance. To do so, the Air Corps should be assisted, in a more concrete
manner, to conduct routine patrols in cooperation with the ground forces and Coast Guard, respectively.
This would assist in the interdiction of contraband activities on the countryƞs border and the detection of
illegal fishing and other violations of its maritime zone.

Inshore patrol vessels, similarly, should be acquired to enable the suppression of illegal fishing, illegal
migration, narcotics-trafficking, gun-running and contraband-smuggling. There should be a Coast Guard
presence in the Corentyne area, in particular, to suppress smuggling. Funds should be granted to permit
the financing of regular, long-range maritime patrols.

With regard to manpower, the Commission recommended that recruitment procedures should have a
particular focus on the Indian-Guyanese community because of its general disinclination to join the Force;
this should not be done to the neglect or exclusion of other ethnic groups. The Force should adopt
recruitment procedures which must take into consideration cultural, sociological and psychological
imperatives, designed to attract Indian-Guyanese in particular to the GDF.

The Guyana Defence Board should create a separate establishment and organisation structure for the
Reserve Force, similar to that of the Regular Force, showing the strengths and detailed descriptions of
the various units.





The Commission found that the issue of paramount importance to Fire Serviceƞs fire-fighting efforts was
the supply of water at the scenes of fires. The Commission recommended that the Minister of Home
Affairs use his office to ensure that fire hydrants are supplied with adequate water for fireƛfighting
purposes. The issue of who bears legal responsibility for the maintenance of the fire hydrants should be
speedily resolved, even if it requires legislative intervention.

The Commission also recommended that immediate efforts should be made by the Minister to acquire at
least one fire boat for the Service in the short term. Additional fire stations should be established at
appropriate locations between Ogle and Rosignol and Georgetown and Timehri Ơwith dispatch.ơ
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The Commissionƞs greatest concern, with regard to the Prison Service, was the growing size of the prison
population. As numbers increase, there ought to be a commensurate increase in the actual and
authorised strength of the Serviceƞs security personnel.

It was felt that the risk of over-burdening the Georgetown prison with too many high-security prisoners
should be reduced by the transfer of the convicted to the more commodious Mazaruni Prison after
completion of its physical rehabilitation and structural expansion. It was recommended, therefore, that
the Georgetown Prison should be rehabilitated and its facilities improved and modernised if found to be
economically feasible; that the Mazaruni Prison should be expanded and provided with the requisite
human and material resources for greater prison intake as a solution to the overcrowding problem in the
Georgetown Prison and that there should be a female remand prison in the vicinity of Georgetown.

The Commission recommended that there should be a constructive regime of activities geared to
beneficially occupy prisonersƞ time. This should include learning useful skills such as masonry, carpentry,
joinery, agriculture or reading books on topics in electronics and mechanics.

These, therefore, were some of the 164 recommendations for reform of Guyanaƞs Disciplined Forces.
They were considered relevant to current social conditions and should be reviewed periodically if they are
to remain relevant to functional effectiveness and efficiency. The Commissionƞs work should not be seen
as final. It is merely a part, if not the start, of a continuing process of adaptation and change to improve
the performance of the Disciplined Forces in the discharge of their responsibilities. The practice of
conducting periodic national security reviews with the aim and objective of examining changes in the
security environment on the one hand and recommending improvements in the Disciplined Forces on the
other, should be considered.

The Report of the Disciplined Forces Commission was, essentially, a performance report on the Ministry
of Home Affairs. Now that the National Assembly has approved it, will the administration implement its
recommendations? Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee last March explained that the passage of the
Report of the Disciplined Forces Commission should see stakeholders in the security sector being tasked
with the responsibility to implement the recommendations. He expected that the recently established
Standing Committee on oversight of the Security Sector Ơwill have general oversight of the security sector
under which the Report of the Disciplined Forces Commission will be implemented.ơ

Many of the recommended changes are administrative in nature. They have little to do with yet another
slow-moving standing committee. They require decisive governmental action, particularly by the Ministry
of Home Affairs. But everyone is not optimistic about the future of the forces. Leader of the Alliance for
Change party Raphael Trotman, expressing his concern at the length of time it took to approve the
Report in the first place, moaned, ƠWe shudder to think that if it took seven years to consider the
recommendations, how many centuries will it take to implement them?ơ