civilian life was broken and the working day slightly lengthened. For on 12 October it was discovered that Venezuelan personnel were "silently and systematically" encroaching upon Guyanese territory. Venezuela the rich and powerful neighbour to the West of Guyana, despite its ostensible acceptance of the peaceful procedures laid down and agreed to in the Geneva Agreement of 1966, had executed a carefully planned incursion on the island of Ankoko, situate at the confluence of the boundary rivers Cuyuni and Wenamu, had introduced military and civilian personnel and began the construction of an airstrip and the erection of other installations and structures. The details of the dispute are adequately recorded elsewhere and cannot be dealt with here. What this flagrant act meant was that the baby GDF, still rocking in the coast-bound cradle in which all of the other Security Forces in the country had operated in the past, was hurled into the jungle outpost of Eteringbang on the Eastern banks of the Cuyuni. It meant too that the heavy emphasis on coastal, internal security duties would have to be balanced by training for other types of operations; that our entire logistics machine which functioned well in the cosy built-up areas abounding with stores and warehouses would have to be overhauled; that the ancient "Grumman Goose" plane of the civil airline that transported our soldiers to that distant lookout, would have to be replaced and that our ancient bolt-action No. 4 rifles were hopelessly out of date. In fact the Ankoko crisis was the first real test for the GDF and the pressure of real operations forced a critical examination and re-appraisal of every operational, training, administrative and logistic component of the army machine.