MR.EDITOR, the Chronicle as the people’s paper, should join in speaking out on any seemingly institutional breakdowns. Our current response to piracy is one such case. There is something wrong with our “Disciplined Services” inability to provide consistent and significantly improving protection to the Guyanese people overall and over time. In spite of the increasing budget outlays for these services, their occasional successes are not sufficient to the ordinary citizen who suffers from criminal activities.
Although the Crime Chief and Home Affairs Minister may share a more positive view of the services’ efforts, one can offer constructive criticisms and concern about their overall performance. Pirates having, if true almost 12 hours to attack 15 fishermen without a system for alarm or response from any of these services, justifies these concerns.

Mr. Editor, is our Coast Guard a functioning unit? Which areas do they patrol? Are there any active air patrols? Outside of our dispute with Suriname over a piece of land, our security threat is mostly internal. Perhaps, our overall security forces should be designed and deployed with these facts in mind and within our limited resources.

Hopefully, these comments will not be seen as anti-government or anti disciplinary forces, but a call for a serious re-evaluation of these services, capabilities and performances of their assigned duties. Talking of reactive plans is far from taking proactive steps and implementing them effectively is just saying.