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Nov 02, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,

Imagine if you will, as a foreign national visiting Guyana , you happen upon some police men and become a suspect of a crime. A forced confession could be gotten out of you and your family might not know your whereabouts for a long time.

Guyana is a signatory member of the United Nations Treaty of Convention Against Torture. If the Jagdeo administration does not condone torture, it should unequivocally say so and fire the Minister of Home Affairs and the Police Commissioner under whose watch this latest episode transpired.

The mongoose was brought to Guyana and the Caribbean to control the snake problem in the sugar industry; we know how well that worked out. When members of the GDF and GPF became eligible to share in the reward money for the capture of ‘Fineman’ and others, it didn’t raise red flags in people’s consciences. When allegations of torture were made by Buxtonians as well as soldiers, it stirred little emotions among a sliver of the country that still care about right and wrong, but the issue disappeared from the national scene as quickly as it appeared. Lindo Creek and then the killings and robbery by the Coastguards and the disappearance of little Ricky Jainarine followed and there was, again, some outrage but that too dissipated.

Well here we go again. A 15-year-old is tortured during the course of a “routine” police murder investigation but this time the demographics have changed. Torture now appears to be standard operating procedure for the Guyana Police Force. This is not “roughing up.” This is a violation of human rights, a violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture. If blind loyalist PPP supporters can’t wake up to see how State sponsored torture is now affecting their demographic; they will not have only traded familiarity for undelivered promises of security but would have ceded their human and civil rights in exchange for nothing.

No amount of minimizing and obfuscation by government ministers and paid spin doctors can remove this scourge that has now entrenched itself in the national fabric of the country along with racial polarization, endemic corruption, incompetence and a host of other ills that every Guyanese must grudgingly share ownership of.

They elected this government. They have not demanded accountability and transparency. The recognised opposition is virtually non-existent and impotent. If the AFC is the intellectual and moral bulwark against the excesses of this morally bankrupt PPP/Jagdeo administration, now is the time for them to put President Jagdeo and his administration on record and have them tell the nation why they support torture of its citizens.

The AFC must promise every Guyanese citizen that when they get in office, they will bring to justice all those who committed these atrocities in their name.

The Jagdeo administration curiously walked away from “free” money, a penchant the mendicant has not demonstrated before. Except this time the British donors wanted accountability from the government to go along with the police reform they offered so by claiming the country’s sovereignty would be compromised if they allowed fundamental reform versus force modernization; they walked away.

It is clear that torture is among the other illegal/immoral things they did not want a foreign government to witness from the inside. While Venezuela can violate Guyana’s sovereignty at will and at times resulting in uncompensated death of Guyanese nationals, the safety of all of its citizens and professionalizing of the police force is not important to this administration. Self aggrandizement of government officials and the well connected is.

Nigel Jason

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