There is no regard for human lives. Young and old have a murderous syndrome these days. The way of life in Guyana is to kill or be killed.

This happens people have no respect for the law,their

mindset is they will not be caught and if they do they

will get a slap on the wrist or bribed their way out.

People in Guyana have no regards for life.  They kill a person during a simple robbery.  The government needs to send a strong signal and maybe start hanging these criminals again.

Agreed,strong message is needed ,if you commit crimes

you will be  severely punished,the president or the the

minister should address the nation with regarding this

run away situation.

The all knowing Carib will say such measures won't work. That it's just an 'emotional response'. I say, tell that to those people who lost love one to these criminals by violent means. I remember during Hoyte's time, criminals swung at D,'urban and John street and crime was very low.

It would be difficult for Granger administration to send a strong signal to criminals when he releases them back into society. All your good ideas need to be sent to the government of Guyana and let them know how you feel about the criminal activities.

The PPP gave away its ability to control violent crime

Dear Editor, Ralph Ramkarran, in last Sunday’s column on the Sean Hinds saga reminded us about the problematic and dangerous nexus between violent crime and politics in Guyana. Ramkarran’s take on the crime wave from 1992 – 2008 and the so called “Buxton uprising” is based on two irrefutable facts: one, the crime took on a more violent and bestial form under successive PPP administrations, and, two, the violence associated with the “death squad” were intertwined with the endemic corruption within the Guyana Police Force. Ramkarran must be credited for reminding us that there was an inherent ethnic element to the crime wave, a fact that seems to have gotten lost in the current revelations. Some counts put the death toll at 400 Africans who died in the killing spree. But Kissoon in a series of articles on the Buxton Insurgency as “Oceans 11” reminded us that “ the incontrovertible fact remains that a group of seasoned criminals with no scruples or remorse in raping innocent women, robbed and killed people savagely because of their ethnicity”, resulting in the murder of 29 Indian businessmen. The one glaring gap missing in Ramkarran’s piece, as well as in the articles penned by Freddie Kissoon, is the lack of an analysis as to why the violent crimes escalated under successive PPP administrations. I wish to analyze this missing gap. First, we cannot dismiss the fact that corruption is teleological, and if left unchecked, becomes endemic over time. Corruption is rooted in the Burnham/Hoyte dictatorial era. Choke and rob had evolved into kick down the door banditry, which has blossomed into the more violent crimes of the early 2000s. In the 1980s, many of the kick-down-the-door victims targeted were Indians, prompting elder statesman, Eusi Kwayana to refer to the latter crime wave as having “the flavour of ethnic genocide.”.    Second, when the PPP assumed power, police corruption that existed before 1992 was allowed to continue unabated, with Transparency International ranking Guyana at 124 (out of 175) in 2014, up from 116 in 2010. Cheddi Jagan in 1992, promising no recriminations, felt constrained that reforming the police force would have resulted in Africans branding the PPP as a racist government. Malcolm Harripaul, then a member of the PPP security detail, and a former officer of the GDF recounted that several members of the security forces had already “cleaned out their desks” but Cheddi refused to dismiss them. It was speculated then and later that the US might have extracted this inaction as a quid pro quo for brokering the transfer of power from the PNC. Instead of making meaningful institutional changes  – such as making the forces more representative of the populace – which would have placed greater confidence in law and order in the long term, the PPP’s response to crime and corruption was to place loyal and sympathetic supporters – some of them “bought” – to run these institutions. The result, after 23 years, as we have seen today, is that the police force became one of the most corrupt organizations in Guyana’s existence. Third, the political violence that started with the Mash Day 2002 jailbreak gang of five dangerous criminals who set up residence in Buxton (it ended when ‘Fineman’ was killed in 2008), was related to two contributing factors.  The first notable element was the expansion of the narco-trafficking trade. As the US State Department International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports have confirmed, while Guyana is not known for the proliferation of precursor drug- making chemicals, Guyana had grown as a transit country for marijuana and cocaine destined for the United States and other countries and is an emergent money-laundering site. The other related factor is the morphing of the criminal mentality with a political ideology. This was primarily done by the Buxton Resistance whose goal, according to Kissoon, was to let loose on Guyana “so that their crime spree could undermine social stability, weaken the government, create circumstances of non-rule and allow for the creation of an interim regime”. Kissoon admitted that “I have hard evidence that this was the plan. And figures in ACDA, the PNC and the WPA were solicited for advice and gave it”.  Kissoon further argues that “the WPA leadership – Desmond Trotman, Clive Thomas, and Tacuma Ogunseye (who was essentially an advisor) – saw political usefulness in the Buxton factor.” He blamed the anti-Indian violence starting in February 2002 on four perceptions held by the “resistance”: Indians have taken Guyana from Blacks who built it, Indians are racists, Indians have all the wealth, and the Kean Gibson theory of a secret plan to exterminate Blacks in Guyana. Essentially, the politically-driven criminal escapees had adopted a cause to their crime plan, posing a severe challenge to the PPP, given their access to information, sophisticated weapons and growing support they received in Buxton. The PPP had proven impotent in preventing the slaughter of Indian businessmen, who found alternative (extra-judicial) means to protect themselves, with some looking to the death squad operatives for assistance. The PPP looked the other way and the business community greased the wheels. Four, the intransigence, and the inability of the PPP to address the growing crime wave and corruption created a situation that further delegitimized the state. The PPP governed as if it was in office but not in power, with corruption, violence and the inability to stem the crime wave chipping away at its legitimacy, the government literally existed in a state of anarchy. Max Weber, the German sociologist defines the state as the entity which has the monopoly on the legitimate use of force. The state has to use its exclusive policing power to promote the general social welfare for the benefit of its citizens. When the state fails in this responsibility, and private citizens take it upon themselves to assume the right to use force, then the state becomes threatened with political anarchy. This was the situation with which the PPP government was faced after 1992. After the Black Power rebellion in Trinidad in the 1970s, Prime Minister Eric Williams took actions to reform the military to create a balanced, as well as a professional force. The Discipline Forces Commission set up in 2003, of which David Granger was a member, made similar recommendations, among others. It is left to be seen whether the Granger administration will pursue these recommendations which are necessary in order to regain control of a runaway police department. Baytoram Ramharack

Welcome to Change, Increase in crime under APNU.

Yeh, during the PPP's tenure there was no crime.

Nope, none, zilch. All the talk about shootings, family killings, coke runnings, coke on prez plane, coke in poke, all that was just joke we been making, it never happened, none of it.