Peeping Tom – LET US HAVE A FULL, NOT A LIMITED, ENQUIRY

Jun 18, 2008 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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We need, I believe, to discuss carefully this call by the Alliance for Change for a United Nations probe into the local activities of Shaheed Roger Khan.

I understand where the AFC is coming from but I wonder whether instead of a limited probe simply into Khan’s activities, we should not open the entire Pandora’s Box about the security situation that led to Khan’s alleged assistance to the authorities to fight crime in Guyana.

What do you think? Do you believe that we should have a comprehensive investigation into what went wrong following the PPP’s election victory in 2001? Or do you believe that we should simply isolate Khan’s involvement and presume that there were not circumstances that led to him being involved?

Do you not also feel that the Alliance for Change should be more circumspect in calling for an investigation on the basis of untried and untested evidence? I would have thought that since many of its leaders are lawyers that the AFC would have been more cautious about making calls on the basis of preliminary depositions in the United States Courts. I think we need to talk about this matter further.

Should we also not be fair to Khan, after all he is not here to defend himself and therefore all manner of accusations can be made against which he cannot defend himself?

Do you not also feel that the AFC’s call for a UN investigation in Roger Khan’s activities is quite belated? Or is it a case of better late than never?

When he went into hiding from the security forces, Khan had issued a statement in which he indicated that he had helped the law enforcement agency to fight crime.

This has been deliberately spun to imply that Khan was involved in extra-judicial killings of criminals. Khan has never said that he killed on behalf of anyone and therefore we need to tread carefully in our assumptions about this matter.

We also need to weigh the evidence that is emerging in the US deposition system. This evidence is not tested as yet under cross examination but it seems as if people are already making up their minds. Should we be doing this?

I would like to see a national debate about the AFC’s call for a UN probe. But would it not have been better if the AFC had first called on the US to make available whatever information there is on Khan’s activities in Guyana?

After all did Guyana not play its part in the interdiction of Khan and should we therefore not expect something in return from the United States? If for example there is evidence of Khan’s involvement in crime in Guyana, the AFC should call on the US government to make that evidence available, should they not?

If the United States also has evidence that the government of Guyana gave permission to Roger Khan to procure spy equipment, the AFC should ask them to produce that evidence. Is this not the right approach? So far all we have is information suggesting that Khan purchased some equipment from a Spy Store.

Guyana is a sovereign country. And therefore the first call of the AFC should be for a local investigation. But if it feels that such an investigation will be compromised, it is within its right providing it makes out a prima facie case for an international investigation which of course must be approved by the government of Guyana.

I am glad that the AFC is calling for an investigation because there are many unanswered questions as to what exactly took place in Guyana following the 2001 General and Regional Elections.

Following the PPP’s victory in the 2001 elections, there was an orchestrated plot by forces to make this country ungovernable through the use of criminal violence. The poor people of this country were being picked off like ducks on a rifle range and the police and army seemed unable to muster the will to get the criminals.

It was in such circumstances, that Roger Khan and others were said to have offered support to the security forces.

Is it a crime to offer support to the law enforcement agencies? It all depends on what form that support took and this is why we need information, isn’t it?

Every citizen has a duty to support law enforcement agencies and regardless of what Khan may or may not have been involved in, if he did offer assistance to the security forces with intelligence about the criminals then he was doing his duty as a citizen.

If however in so doing he broke the law he must answer for that, but I believe that the vast majority of Guyanese were appreciative of any assistance that may have been given to the security forces. If Khan offered such assistance he would, I believe, have found support by the vast majority of Guyanese.

I think this is a thorny issue that needs to be debated because there were a lot of people out there who were relieved when the criminals were neutralized, without considering the larger picture as to what means were being used.

I therefore urge the Alliance for Change to move forward in demanding a comprehensive investigation into what took place in Guyana after the 2001 elections, the shortcomings of the police and the army and the role that private citizens played in defending a State that was shredding apart.

Let us have the investigation but let us not limit it to Khan’s alleged activities.  Let us investigate just what and who was behind the Buxton madness and why the security forces were so helpless during that period.

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