Sep 20, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column Kaieteur News – One gun seizure by law enforcement could be dismissed as unusual. A second seizure should alarm Guyanese, prompt sitting up, urge paying attention. A third gun seizure close to the others is out of the ordinary.
The roiling becomes the routine, these sporadic seizures by the police. The seizures are not of pistols and smaller caliber firearms. They are submachine guns: high-powered, modern, and with compelling strength about what is law and order and what is not.
In a big sprawling society with a population to match, the seizures could be taken in stride, few eyelids batted. On the other hand, in a society as coiled and as on the edge as Guyana, when guns of this type are found, then those who ignore do so at their own risk. GHK Lall Amid these seizures, a question nips, nags: how many illegal guns are lying around out there undiscovered in underground Guyana? A second reads like this: are they all the property of criminal gangs? A third question is if they are of the same automatic sophistication and all that that means, or are they even better? That is, possessing more killing power more rapidly and more efficiently.
Too often, the other issues in boiling Guyana that roil take centerstage and shove developments involving more seized submachine guns to the side. We pass by these at our peril. I say this because the sense is of severe tensions growing and gathering a full head of steam in the local environment.
The gaze bypasses this Christman Season around the corner, and peers into 2025 from start to wherever it finishes. And how. Lines are already drawn and solidifying rigidly.
To keep matters tranquil, I took away battle from lines. Still, no Guyanese should be so casual as to pretend that all is well and swell here. It is my nasty duty to remind friends, foes, and fiends (foes and fiends are interchangeable) that happenings in this society provide ample proof of the tight cluster of the haves and the broad swath of have-nots in a place with so much.
The haves possess an overpowering political aura and aroma. The have-nots, Guyanese to the core, rank below those Venezuelans bent on criminal mischief in Guyana. It may sound harsh, but represents the rawness of differences, the vindictiveness of policies, and the places to which those take here.
Against this agitated backdrop, a persuasive case could be made that most of the illegal armaments of battle are in the hands of the powerful local criminal networks. It is a fair point. But no Guyanese should condemn me to the brutal territory of exaggerator, scaremonger, and troublemaker when I assert that the criminal could be easily converted to the political, as well as the official to the criminal, in this country.
We have seen that before, haven’t we? Often, bad news cannot be avoided, Guyanese have been terrified bystanders around the violent activities of multiple phantom squads. Citizens have also been eyewitnesses to police presences executing felonies and believed to be operating at political behest. Altogether, those that survived just didn’t go away.
They only went underground, and now with the advantage of new faces in the same prostrate environment. Are there still objections? Thus: as that date and time next year draw near, this country may have a date with a different destiny. All the ingredients are present.
Inequity is now a standard that drives forward to new heights, even as it is denied. Inclusion is a stepchild dressed up for special occasions, and then given a boot to the behind when the foreign guests leave. Conspicuously, their uncertainties remain unanswered, trapped in a swirl of anxiety.
The police are besieged. The people are divided. Amid rich celebrations, there are powerful resentments.
Wither Guyana, to where does it go, could go? I still have my eyes on those guns and now they take on an ominous shade. The more they are out there, and the more undetected and unresolved that they remain, the more the probability of madness. It has been said that Guyana is a tinderbox.
The thought has much traction at this address. With all those guns, with all the anger, and with all the accumulated animosities, this is as unhealthy and unsafe as a place can get. There are an unknown number of the best guns that money can buy.
There are elections galloping closer and closer. And there are all these clashing, unending controversies about who is doing right and who has got it wrong. Ten guns can inflict a long season of disturbances.
Five men who set themselves free (that is the official line) showed Guyanese that that is all that it takes. There are more unhappy people today. Hungry ones also.
In circumstances such as these, all the clamours about cost-of-living take on a new and sinister meaning. As much as the wish is to spare the squeamish, there is no such luxury. In this context, cost-of-living and livable wage and percentages are not about prices; at least, not that kind.
It is of a kind that is final, and which cannot be met. Guns are the catalyst. Guns could be the great equalizer.
On each occasion that one or two is seized, the question is how many more hundreds of those are lying around out there. And how they could be used for other objectives. History has informed the world that when certain perceptions and conclusions overwhelm the mind, then the dams burst.
Among them are inequity in distribution, and an absence of inclusivity where such would mean the most. This is the last word: I think that illegal guns are many and that they could contribute prominently. (The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.
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