Fiddling…

…. while murders soar

The Emperor Nero, we’re told, “fiddled while Rome burned”. While he may’ve actually played a harp while his city was razed, you get the idea. Not surprisingly, the phrase has come down the ages illustrate the insistence of some to do nothing while knowing that something disastrous is happening.
Well, at least good sense prevailed on Thursday in our National Assembly. With murders, robberies and carnage on the roads rising in the first months of the year, the minister of home affairs, Clement Rohee had announced he would present his Police Reform Strategy to the legislature. We know we don’t have to go over all the back-and-forth the opposition has engaged in to prevent Rohee from speaking in that honourable Assembly.
Their bottom line was, even though the court had preliminarily ruled that no one (including the National Assembly) could take away Rohee’s right to speak in representing his constituencies, the Speaker had indicated that he would not comply until there was a definitive ruling. So you could understand that there was quite a bit of suspense in the lead up to Thursday’s sitting. Would the government have Rohee speak? Would the Speaker gag the minister? Would the opposition walk out as threatened?
As we said, good sense prevailed: Rohee rose  to speak; the opposition walked out but the Speaker – like  Solomon of yore – decided to do the right thing, for the greater good. Taking cognisance of the ground realities on the subject at hand – threats to citizens’ security – and that the minister was going to expand on how the state was going to address those threats, he allowed Rohee to speak.
He didn’t fiddle, (or more literally, twiddle his thumb while our nation was held at ransom by the forces anarchy. And so while we have thrown some brickbats in the direction of the Speaker in the past, we have to offer bouquets when he rises above partisan posturing. The rules of the institutions that govern us were all crafted to ensure that our nation’s well-being is secured. Those rules cannot be applied in a Procrustean and dogmatic fashion: it is not the letter of the law that is paramount but its spirit.
As for the opposition, we’d like to believe their walkout was just a face-saving gesture. The test as to whether they’ll fiddle while Guyana burns will come when it is time to vote on funding of the Police Reform Project.

To shoot or not to shoot…
The police have often been accused of simply reacting to crimes rather than being more pro-active. ‘Intelligence-led’ policing is the way to go, they’re told in no uncertain terms. So last Wednesday, the police got a tip that a robbery was being planned on the home/office of a miner. What’d they do after receiving this intelligence? They pro-actively ‘staked-out’ the location, until – low and behold – some armed characters disembarked from a car, and entered the premises.
Now if the police received info on what was going down, they‘d most likely been told about whom the robbers were – known perps of armed robberies. But whether they had this info or not, the drawn handguns clearly showed that they were not about to offer the miner a plaque. The police and the miner confirmed that after the robbers were hailed, they opened fire and the police followed Standard Operating Procedures and returned fire.
The wife of one of the bandits not surprisingly is quite distraught. She claims that her husband had ‘surrendered’ but was still shot, according to neighbours. These neighbours should come forward. But in the meantime, kudos to the police for acting rather than reacting.

La fiddling continua
With the National Assembly postponing Local Government Elections one more year (due since 1997!!) the fiddling of our local Nero (Hamilton Green) continues. Will we never have a chance to rid our city of this pestilential mayor?