The Minister of Home Affairs should be given an expanded portfolio
Sunday, April 17th 2005
Dear Editor,
By now it should be clear to President Jagdeo that he urgently needs to revise the portfolios of some government ministries.
In recognition of changing social needs and unique Guyanese circumstances, the Ministry of Home Affairs for instance, should have an expanded mission.
Minister Ronald Gajraj must not be impeded by his job description from intelligence gathering especially when that task is undertaken to protect the citizens of this country. It should not be outside the mandate of the Home Affairs minister to probe the origins and operations of a crime wave particularly when there is a publicly held belief that some of the criminals were acting on instructions from certain political groups aiming for social disruption.
In fact, Dr. Roger Luncheon, Head of the Presidential Secretariat has confirmed that members of the administration involved in security issues were aware of Mr. Gajraj's efforts at intelligence gathering around the time that the Guyana Police Force was overwhelmed by the crime wave. Will the opposition parties now call for all these members of government to resign?
I am very heartened to hear Minister Gajraj say that faced with a similar situation he would do it all again. Indeed Minister, "impropriety" in defence of public safety and the preservation of life is no vice. I applaud your strength of purpose.
The authority to do "operational policing" should have been the minister's in the first place and I hope the government works at granting him that power.
I note that many of the countries, Canada and those of the European Union included which are now expressing discomfort with Mr. Gajraj's re-appointment had nothing to say when Guyanese were being mercilessly slaughtered in the crime wave. If they had nothing to say then they should have nothing to say now.
The United States' position on the minister's resumption of his duties is ludicrous. I would have added hypocritical but don't want to state the obvious.
The US government has confirmed Alberto Gonzales as attorney general. This is the lawyer who advised the American president that he could ignore the US War Crimes Act and the Geneva Conventions on torture and create a "reasonable basis in law. . .which would provide a solid defence to any future prosecution."
The American administration has confirmed Michael Chertoff as Secretary of Homeland Security. Mr. Chertoff is an attorney who looked the other way when 762 innocent immigrants were swept up in a post 9/11 dragnet, held as "terrorism suspects" for several months and denied habeas corpus.
And in the Los Angeles Times of March 2001 Maggie Farley and Norman Kempster said of newly appointed intelligence czar John Negroponte: "While ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, Negroponte directed the secret arming of Nicaragua's Contra rebels and is accused by human rights groups of overlooking-if not actually overseeing-a CIA-backed Honduran death squad during his tenure.
"Although Negroponte, a career diplomat, has in previous confirmation hearings denied knowledge of systematic human rights abuses, declassified documents and disclosures by former death squad members since his latest testimony in 1993 have cast doubt on whether he was telling the whole truth before Congress."
And Matthew Rothschild in The Progressive of February 19th recalled how Negroponte "served as a political officer in Saigon from 1964 to 1968, and then he headed up the Vietnam desk at the National Security Council from 1971 to 1973. During that decade of time, the Johnson-Nixon war was killing two to three million Vietnamese, along with 58,000 U.S. soldiers. But Negroponte did not want the war to end. . . A decade later in Central America, Negroponte essentially ran the illegal Contra War against Nicaragua from his post as U.S. ambassador to Honduras. This war cost the lives of some 30,000 people."
That said, one wonders why the United States should be "deeply concerned" about Min. Gajraj's re-appointment. Here is a man who has been cleared of any criminal activity by an independent panel of honourable Guyanese. His only indiscretion is his association with an alleged criminal, Axel Williams, who it has been revealed was providing information about murderers in our midst. There is also a misjudgement regarding the granting of certain firearm licences.
However it is abundantly clear that Minister Gajraj's intentions have always been to serve and he has done so very effectively in the past.
Yours faithfully,
David Seegobin
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