THE recent capture, with their booty, of some pirates who had terrorised and robbed fisherfolk with impunity, shows

that, despite the rogue elements, and those complicit with destructive politicians, the majority of members in the joint services in general, and the GPF in particular, continue to serve and protect the citizens of this nation.
Criminals are more represented and defended in this country by the people with consciences (sic!) than the victims.
But while the victims of the criminals intermittently brought down by police during their murderous and thieving sprees may feel some degree of vindication, their agony and trauma would be lifelong legacies of their ordeals.
Those who provide protection and assistance to these predators of society should be punished in equal measure, because there would have been less victims if they had not been part of the equation that enabled the perpetrators to continue, unabated, their rampage of death and destruction to people and property.
It is unlikely that these persons who provide a support base for these criminal elements do not share in the spoils, so they are equally culpable for the crime, and should be prosecuted accordingly.
From one corner of the country to another these viciously inhuman creatures of Satan prey on the defenceless and the vulnerable, subjecting the nation to the status of collective victimhood, because the fear of attack robs every citizen of the land of their peaceful existence and their peace of mind.
Everyone who protests against the police on behalf of a known criminal who has terrorised and/or preyed on the society is also guilty of encouraging criminality.
They need to take into consideration that they or their loved ones can be the next target of a predator, because criminals have no compassion, no loyalty and no fear of God.
Everyone across every divide is a potential victim, and one woman who had joined in protesting the death of some criminals at the hands of the police was herself shot and killed by bandits in broad daylight.
Call it divine retribution or poetic justice, the fact is that she and her loved ones became victims of the very persons whom she had defended and championed in protest actions.
Police officers are human beings with families who love them. Every time they don their uniforms they lay their lives on the line. The least the society owes them is the recognition that they are the dividing wall protecting (with their lives sometimes) the society from the predators.
What often upsets them is that, after they have worked very hard at great risk to themselves to capture a perpetrator, some bleeding heart magistrate, through the intervention and rascality of complicit lawyers let the culprits return to society to continue their criminal activities.
Apart from the material possessions of victims, they often take their lives and the virginity of young girls – their minutes-long activities leaving life-long agony and devastation of the soul.
These criminals should be tested for STDs so that their victims can get psychological relief, or be alerted on a need to get themselves tested, because they may, in addition to the agony of their ordeal, be suffering from the fear of contracting a deadly disease, or maybe a disease that may spell their eventual demise.
The deaths of these predators come too swift and mercifully.
The English had a punishment they called “hang, draw, and quarter.”
The guilty are hung, but not long enough to kill them; then their four limbs are tied to horses, which are then lashed into movement. The condemned person is torn into four quarters, pulled into four directions by the horses.
Some serious methodologies need to be introduced to deter criminals from engaging with such impunity in the cruel acts they perpetrate against members of the society, and Guyana’s legislators need to seriously re-think their policy on the cat-o-nine tails.
In the meantime, kudos to the boys in uniform who continue to be true to their mandate to “protect and serve” the nation.