Halt the brutality of citizens

Jul 23, 2009 Editorial

Executive cruelty appears to know no bounds. Once more people are being picked up by people suspected to be soldiers and brutalised to within an inch of their life. The most recent victim is Troy Small, a labourer who builds tombs in Le Repentir Cemetery.
Small was taken from outside his home Monday night, bundled into a car that sped down Mandela Avenue. It was nothing short of a kidnap because there was no warrant; the men used subterfuge to dispatch his friend who was with him at the time; then they dragged him, half of his body hanging out of the vehicle.
They took him to the cemetery, beat the daylights out of him, using a hammer in the process to shatter his legs then depositing him at a police station where they reported that he was in a fight with two men and sustained the injuries he bore. One police station refused to accept the man because of his physical condition but the Alberttown Police accepted him. This is an indictment of the Guyana Police Force because it is now party to torture and abuse of citizens. The uttering by the police that they know nothing of the situation cannot hold water because they should have hurried the man to hospital instead of hiding him under a counter in the police station.

If an injured man is brought to the police station by persons unknown the people depositing the injured man must be questioned and statements taken. This was not done and one can only conclude that the police knew the men who took Small to the station.
The army has since denied knowledge of the incident and this tells us that the army has people who are operating outside the administration. This is a dangerous development.
If the men are not responsible to the army hierarchy then they must be responsible to someone and there are two people who could be so designated—the Defence Secretary who is Dr Roger Luncheon and the Commander in Chief who is President Bharrat Jagdeo.
The Untied States is in turmoil over reports that the administration sanctioned what they call water boarding—torturing a man by a method that could lead to drowning. Some of the victims died during the process. There is an investigation and people are going to be prosecuted.

In Guyana, there is no such process of prosecution of people who perform excesses while violating the rights of citizens. To this day the very army that beat two Buxtonians almost to the point of death has done nothing akin to an investigation of the reports. The men are helpless because they are either too poor to approach the courts for justice or simply afraid. In fact, one has moved to Trinidad out of fear.
Something is horribly wrong if there is a legitimate force picking up people just for the fun of it and beating them with impunity. Anyone can be so treated and one must now wonder if that treatment is going to be extended to any critic. Opposition politicians are now not safe to criticize any system; they could disappear. It is the same with anyone. This recent episode involving Troy Small appears to hinge on the fire that destroyed the Ministry of Health. No one in his or her right senses would condone the destruction of the government asset.

There must be investigation and a lot of leg work to find the culprit or culprits. Just recently, the Inter-American development Bank funded a programme aimed at improving the criminal justice system. The focus was on investigation, which, the trainers admitted, was weak. They were also at pains to inform the investigators that their task was not to pursue a conviction but to ensure that justice was done.
However, this brutality that is being visited on ordinary people, innocent or guilty of any crime, seems bent only on securing a conviction at any cost. This cannot be justice and certainly, a violation of people’s rights.
There is clear evidence that executive excesses breed criminal activity. When the police shot people wantonly, a group rose to shoot back at the police. This ended when the police changed tactics. We can only hope that the current excesses do not breed the kind of hostile reaction from the criminal world that almost shut down the country.
We say to the authorities, investigate this most recent atrocity or expose the nation to reciprocal behaviour by those who are always on the other side of the fence.

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