Dear Editor,
In missive captioned “While a nation mourns, a minister boasts” (KN Oct 30), Sherod Duncan (former Opposition Member of Parliament) unfairly criticized Minister Onedige Walrond on her handling of affairs in the aftermath of the explosion at the Mobil gas station on evening of Oct 26.
I never had occasion to engage Minister Walrond. The people I engaged said she handled the aftermath of the incident well. As reported, the Minister and cabinet colleagues as well as the police, CID, special investigator, forensic specialists were quickly at the scene that was cordoned.
Cordoning off the site and securing it for crime specialists, in this case bomb experts, is standard operating procedure. The Ministers and the government, in general, immediately provided support to the family. They offered their sympathy and solidarity with the family to find the attackers. The Minister did not boast about the explosion; no one would other than the perpetrators. Minister Oneidge expressed pride in how the police and other first responders (medics, ambulance, health workers) were also quick at the scene and worked professionally to help the victims. She boasted about the use of technology to collect evidence and to identify the perpetrator (s); the force, the CID, and forensic lab are being modernized. All Guyanese should be proud of such investment and the Minister ought to be proud that crime investment technology in a major terror attack worked well. That is not politics; the investment is for the benefit of nation. Everyone worked professionally in handling the crime scene as well as in providing assistance to the victims and in using the technology. And I believe that is also what the Minister boasted.
The family called for justice and rightly and deservingly. The police moved fast and arrested at least one perpetrator who was identified by a gas station staff as the one who placed the bomb at the station.
I agree with Mr. Duncan that better work (and technology) is needed at the porous border. But one can have the best technology to control the border and or to detect bombs, a criminal always find a way to get around the technology. Even the Americans, a tough anti-migrant President Trump, can’t stop illegal immigration at the porous American borders or able to stop major domestic crimes and explosions. That is why technology is dynamic to deter criminal acts. Our government should try to be update in the use of technology, but it is not cheap.
I agree that government and police officials should address the press and be open to the public via the media once investigations and national security are not compromised.
Contrary to what Duncan penned, on balance, the Minister did not “celebrate wonders”. She celebrated the work put in by various first responders and the available technology to address major disasters. The technology may not work to keep out potential criminals at the borders. That is a work in progress as it is in every country.
On her first major challenge in her new Ministry, where she has been less than two months, she did well; the public I engaged praised her work. The Minister, the government, the police should be supported as they continue investigations into the explosion and the intellectual planners and perpetrators behind it (them). The investigation should not be politicized. The family and the country want justice and the Minister and investigators are working towards that objective.