Restoring Confidence in the Police

By anthony sylvestre

A colleague of mine remarked the other day that the Ministers of government should be mandated to do drug testing, at least three times for the year. They do the ‘strangest’ things, he said. “And to think, they are the most powerful people in the country, whose decisions and actions affect all of us, even if we voted for them or not.”

There is more than a kernel of truth in the observation of my friend, who was a very successful politician in years gone by, he being a Minister of Government and all. He was being of course euphemistic to described the actions of Ministers of Government as ‘strange’, but fi’ true, deh Ministers of Government do have you scratching your head many times.

Consider, for instance, this week’s revelation that no less than the newly appointed Minister of Police was rendezvousing with friends to St. George’s Caye on a boat that was ‘un-registered’ and later searched by the personnel of the Police Anti-drug Unit because the boat was rumoured to be “a drug vessel”. And yes, the Honourable Minister of Police was present when the search was done. That is indeed, to be euphemistic, a very very ‘strange’ sequence of events for the Minister of Police and Public Safety to be netted up in. Ih look wah way, as they say in the street.

Now the Minister of Police will deny that he had knowledge that the vessel was ‘un-registered’ as the television newscast put it. But surely, as the Minister of Police and Minister of Public Safety (which basically means the Minister of law and order), he should know more than anyone else that ignorance of such things can still get you in trouble with the law. He should know, (and if he doesn’t know, he should ask his fellow Ministers the Attorney General or the former Minister of Police Carlos Perdomo) that there is a law that this UDP government passed which sends a citizen to jail if he is in a vehicle in which a gun is found, even though he has no knowledge about that gun which is found. A citizen can’t get bail from a Magistrate if he is caught in a sequence of events like that; he is remanded to Hattieville until he can get a lawyer to secure bail for him in the Supreme Court.

Now, as the Minister of Law and Order, you would want to think that he knows a little something about the laws of Belize, right; in any event, that should be a prerequisite for the job. So then, his actions or omissions are scrutinized more vigorously.

And this is the point here. Even if the Minister of Law and Order knew or did not know that the vessel on which he was a passenger was “un-registered”, the owner of the vessel, his friend, was breaking the laws of Belize when it sailed from Belize City to St. George’s Caye and back..

Section 16 of the Harbours and Merchant Shipping Act expressly states that no vessel shall proceed to sea or on a river without a ‘sea-going Certificate”. The section further makes it a criminal offence for the owner of such vessel to send or permit such vessel to proceed to sea or on a river without a “sea-going certificate.”

Now all this would be funny, except that there is no law and order in Belize right now, and the man hand-picked to restore law and order in Belize has been caught in an incident which ‘look wah way.’ In other countries, Ministers of Government resign for even less.

The Minister of Police and Public Safety of course is not an elected representative, so he has no constituency or base to pander to. I suppose then, all of this will go unpunished by the electorate.

But by any accounts, the incident does look ill on the Minister and the Ministry of Police; not the ‘ill’ Jenny Lovell was speaking about the other night on Duets.

In a time of anarchy, which is Belize right now, it is doubly important that the state apparatus of the police is seen to be operating aboveboard. That is the only way that citizens can regain confidence in it. Incidents like this one involving the Minster of Police don’t give that appearance; it gives a contrary one.

I am sure our friends in the North are watching and taking note.

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