Guyana Observer News

Marginalization by any other name would appear just the same

Monday, 11 May 2009

By: Dr. Linden Beaton
Guyana Map

There is little doubt, at least in the opinion of the author and, perhaps, a wide cross section of Guyanese populace, that the deteriorating quality of Policing in Guyana can be directly linked to the quality of the political leadership that Guyana has been laboring under over the past 17 years. The Guyana Police Force was once a preeminent law enforcement organization, with abilities and members that were the envy of many Caribbean Commonwealth territories. Its officers were continuously being recruited to train or head the Police Departments of several island territories. Today, by any objective examination, the Guyana Police Force has become a shell of what it once was, dragged down to the depths of incompetence and perversion by little napoleons more interested in political revenge and payback, than in progress and development of the Force. In 16 years or thereabouts we have watched in horror a metamorphosis in the values and principles of Policing in Guyana. Where once the political leadership of the force publicly championed and stressed adherence to the “Rule of Law”, “Due Process” and the “Presumption of Innocence”, today’s bosses publicly defend the atrocities of “Collective Punishment”, “Selective Prosecution”, and “Extra Judicial Justice”.

The “Rule of Law” is supposed to ensure that the distribution of justice is equalized across all fronts. It is supposed to be a buffer against potential abuse of its awesome power by those empowered to directly or indirectly take away the life or liberty of citizens in societies governed by such laws. The rule of law was designed with the intention of promoting and ensuring balance and fairness in the administration of justice, and thus reducing the risk of conflict because of abuse of the power of the Law. The contemptuous discarding of a legally issued subpoena by the late PPP leader Janet Jagan in 1997, graphically illustrates what plans that party made when it came to the rule of law.

Throughout the period of the “troubles”, if they can be so described, The President of Guyana engaged in the Pavlovian exercise of criticizing the performance of Law Enforcement, unless in the course their functions black heads were bloodied, or bodies were riddled with bullets. Whether the force used during this period was justified becomes irrelevant when the leader of a nation make pronunciations of guilt against individuals and selected communities, and skillfully use reinforcement mechanisms of reward and punishment in order to manipulate the operations of Law Enforcement. The results that unfolded saw Law Enforcement walking a tight rope when they were dealing with Guyanese of Indian descent, and metamorphosing into replicas of “Mr. Hyde”, in their interaction with Guyanese of African descent. So when Tain erupted in anger over alleged Police misconduct, burning stuff in the roadway and blocking them with obstacles, the Cops handled the protestors with kid gloves, and Ministers of the Government called for the heads of the subjects of the complaints. In contrast however, when Buxtonians protested the shooting to death of Donna Herod by the Police, the harassment and illegal arrests and abuse of residents of the village including kids, they were described as hoodlums and hooligans, accused of harboring criminals, and the joint services were sent in to bust more heads and keep them in line. The rule of Law in Guyana under the tenure of the PPP had metamorphosed into collective punishment for people of African descent, and the sending of a clear message to them that they had no rights which this regime was duty bound to respect.

Law, in the context of Guyana, is loosely defined as “a rule of human conduct, enforced by its authority, the Courts”. As a civilized specie, we Guyanese collectively make and agree to these arrangements of order, of protection, of sanction. The Rule of Law represent the highest principles that we Guyanese, as a society, collectively agree to observe in our interaction with each other as individuals and groups. Abandonment of the Rule of Law in any society opens a Pandora’s Box of injustice, oppression and yes, conflict. For when injustice and oppression replaces the Rules of Law in any society, conflict will become the inevitable consequence.

Under the Laws of Guyana, everyone accused or suspected of a crime is entitled to Due Process. That is to say their arrest, their custody, their right to bail pending the determination of their case etc, are protected by a set of rules, statutes and regulations that are binding on Law Enforcement and the Criminal Justice System . What has emerged with the PPP coming into power in 1992 however is blatant selectivity in according these rights to suspects or accused persons. Roger Khan and another Guy named Sugrim, were both caught with arms, ammunitions, and in the case of Khan, a prohibited piece of electronic eavesdropping equipment. Nothing became of those matters. In fact the equipment was returned to Khan who proceeded to use it to monitor the phone calls of the then Commissioner of Police. In contrast, Mark Benschop who was framed with treason charge and was the beneficiary of an 11 to 1 jury verdict in favor of innocent, was refused bail under circumstances of politically applied pressure on the judiciary, and forced to languish in prison for more than five years. You see, he failed the pencil in hair test that seem to be the get out of jail free card acceptable to the PPP. For them, Justice has come to mean “just us” getting our heads bashed in, being riddled with police bullets, and being carted off to jail.

A sitting Minister of the Government, in broad daylight, committed the criminal offence of ‘Discharging a Loaded Fire-am with intent”, and got away unscathed. He was not censored. He was not prosecuted. In fact the PPP and its idiot assembly dealt felonious wounds to the writings of the relevant Statute under the Firearms Act in order to excuse and justify his actions. There is nothing in the firearm act that allows any licensed firearm owner to fire warning shots in the air. There is nothing under the firearm acts that permits the licensed owner of a personal firearm to draw and fire it, unless he or she is under attack, and are unable to protect or defend themselves by any other means. The circumstances surrounding the Minister drawing and discharging his weapon met the evidentiary requirement for a charge of “Discharging a Loaded Firearm with intent”. But he passes the pencil test, and according to the current regime’s understanding of Due Process, that amounted to a finding of Nolle Prosequi in his case.

In Guyana today, the Police are given instructions to summarily arrest and process black youths in a frightening re-enactment of what obtained in Soweto South Africa during the era of Apartheid Governance. Protest against this kind of collective and selective Law Enforcement persecution elicits rejoinders from the PPP Government and its acolytes that these kids are of a type that will become criminals and terrorist. We thought that this kind of thing was exclusive to places where the politicians in Charge were white, and the oppressed were black or brown. What we are discovering here in Guyana, is that the traditional prejudiced stereotyping and bigotry that bred injustice to blacks in places like the US and South Africa, have been co-opted by the current regime to rationalize and justify their illegal and unlawful actions. So black kids in places like Buxton and Agricola are destined to be criminals according to the rationale in place, and the Cops are being encouraged to preemptively hasten that destiny into a current reality.

The very foundation of Due Process rests on the presumption that every suspect is considered innocent until and unless they are found guilty at a duly constituted trial. It is said that it is preferable for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent person to be wrongfully sanctioned by the law. Those concepts were jettisoned with disdain as a criminal narcotic trafficker and the then Minister of Home Affairs, assembled a motley crew of killers to cull black communities of men they determined were criminal suspects. The drug trafficker claimed he was saving the Government from a coup, while the civilian Minister of Home Affairs hubristically claimed his association with the characters had to do with information gathering. Again, nothing in the laws of Guyana or the Constitution permits a civilian to engage in functions reserved for duly sworn law enforcement officials. The police act does require able bodied citizens to come to the assistance of officers who make such request, but those persons in such pursuit become subject to all the rules and regulations that govern the actions of police officers.

As mutilated bodies of mostly black young men, the signs of torture clearly evident on the corpses, appeared in living color day after day on the front page of the Kaieteur News, the civilian guardians of the rule law and all of its moderating appendages remained silent. There were no protests from the Government to this modern day lynching of black men. There were no indignant urgings from the Government for those engaged in this mass murder to desist from their actions under pain of punishment. In fact many members of Civil Society, including known supporters of the PPP, took to the letter columns of the newspapers to rationalize and justify these killings, and adorn the killers and their minders with glorious halos. Those who were repulsed and aghast over the barbarous development, and made their revulsion known in the press, were accused of supporting and giving aid and comfort to criminals. This became the foundation of the re-election campaign of Bharrat Jagdeo, and he topped it off by telling a homogeneous audience of supporters assembled at Babu John that if the black party won the elections they would give AK47s to criminals.

In one of the great examples of irony, the PPP leadership heaped vituperative criticism on the Government of the United States of America after Roger Khan was taken into custody by the DEA in Trinidad and Tobago. They accuse the US of denying Due Process to Roger Khan, the man who had fatally taken away that right from hundreds. The Government that had not uttered a word of protest while hundreds of citizens were being lynched by murderers under the command of Khan, made an about face in his defense. By this they sent a clear message to the black community of Guyana that they had no problems with Due Process and the Presumption of innocence, providing the suspects or accused could pass the pencil test.

Guyana is at a perilous stage in its transition to democracy, because no group of people can be persuaded to trust a regime that has one standard for one set of citizens, and a different one for another group. Black communities in Guyana, like Ithaca, like certain parts of Georgetown, like certain villages on the East Coast and upper Demerara, are being subjected to marginalization practices that are economic debilitating and socially dehumanizing. The majority black town of Linden where voters en masse voted against the current regime, are confined to getting information from PPP controlled public media. They are denied the right to own and operate Radio Stations or Newspapers. There is not a single black owned newspaper in the country, while there are two Indian owned newspapers, and the publicly owned state organ is under the control of the Indian Party. Although Guyanese of African descent contribute heftily to tax revenues, none the two black owned television stations receive state ads, while those owned by Indians do.

There is no difficulty in identifying evidence of marginalization of blacks in Guyana. The barefaced denials of the Government in the face of this kind of evidence are testament to the mendacious predisposition of the political administration. How can the President in the exercise of the portfolio of Minister of Information give his Indian friend a license to start a newspaper while denying that right to citizens of African descent? How can the Government enhance the economic operations of Indian Media through the facility of ad revenue, while denying even a pittance to struggling black owned media? And most importantly, how can the Political State of Guyana consider this as fair and balanced governance, and ignore the claims and perceptions of black people? If this situation was reversed, would the PPP not be screaming bloody murder to the world at large? You tell me.

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