Something stinks in the Guyana Police Force

Nov 03, 2009 Editorial

Enough cannot be said about the unprofessionalism of some members of the Guyana Police Force; particularly those who tortured a boy who is just 14. The use of force by the ranks of the police force is nothing new, but this is the first time that we have been exposed to the torture of a child. Not even the child arrested for being a member of the Fine Man gang was so tortured.
And so it is that the brutality meted out to the 14-year-old has come to national attention and to the attention of media houses further afield—including those in the United States where barbarity is no secret.
In Guyana there are numerous reports of people being beaten by the police even as they are in custody. And this is not common to Guyana. In fact, it is widespread.
Perhaps one of the most celebrated cases in living memory involved Emmanuel Fairbairn called Emmanuel Batson. He was arrested in the dark days of pre-independence Guyana when Guyana was on the cusp of a civil war, when the trade unions were up in arms against the government.
Those were the days when Georgetown was a veritable hotbed of violence. Policemen were shot and British troops landed in this country. Fairbairn or Batson later testified before a magistrate in colonial Guyana and while his story made for pitiful reading it did not have much impact on the trial except that the police could not use whatever statement he purportedly gave during this incarceration. And it could not be admitted into evidence.
Guyana became independent. There were still police beatings but many of these did not come to public attention either because the people were afraid of victimization or because they were so glad that the ordeal was over that they were prepared to take the beating and let bygones be bygones.
There was another side to all this. The media were not as intrusive as they are today.
Further, the abuses of very poor people were never mentioned because to the rulers of the day, these poor people were incidental to national life. But these days, in a society that is considered egalitarian, all are equal. What happens to one can happen to anyone else, and does.
People have come out to talk about electric shocks, of having their head placed in plastic bags and being suffocated to the point of death. Some have died and their death listed as death at their own hands in a fit of violent rage.
We have seen the case of David Leander who could not walk for his first court hearing; there were others, some having to be lifted up the stairs of the court. Beating suspects had become an accepted norm because the media would merely report on the appearance of the suspect and not much else after then.
Surely, having got away with the cruelty meted out to suspects these police interrogators must have become emboldened because it seems as if they have outdone themselves this time around. They have laid their hands on a kid. Of course we have seen them slap errant motorists on the streets.
Details of the interrogation through which they passed the child are chilling. The child has spoken of being beaten with wood, of having his ears clapped, of being made to suffocate in a cotton bag, of being kicked and made to suffer burns.
What is even more chilling are the actions of the arresting ranks. This is a child; no attempt was made to talk to his parents. The police simply took him away after making him kneel with his face to a wall while his parents looked on helplessly. One is left to wonder whether there is now a total disregard for the rights of a child.
But there is more. Having tortured the child, one can only wonder at the closing of ranks of the senior officials. There is a prison call in the lock-ups. The injury to the lad should have been discovered earlier and was discovered but there were no reports. The Divisional Commander cannot be accused of being left in the dark, as did the Police

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Something stinks in the Guyana Police Force

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