You cannot serve truth and justice and political partisanship at the same time

Dec 02, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Barrington Braithwaite in his letter captioned, “The dossier speaks beyond Roger Khan”, essentially captures the macabre pattern of thinking that make the compilation of that dossier absolutely imperative.
It is a pattern of thinking that is scary, repugnant, and represents a symbolic water mark in the moral decay of our times. A society in which people feel comfortable advancing the notion that the Constitution and the Laws of the State are pliable standards that can be manipulated for political convenience is a society that has badly lost its way. And the people who summon up the hubris and arrogance to present that as a public view, whether by implication or otherwise, are people who should never be armed with the power to administer the interest of a diverse society.
It is said that you cannot serve God and Manna at the same time. That mutual exclusivity is also applicable when the service involves truth, justice and equality under the Law and Constitution on one side, and unadulterated political and other group partisanship on the other side.
The blustering rejection of the dossier and its contents will not obfuscate the evidentiary trails that implicate the political state with failing to live up to its legal responsibility and obligations under the Constitutional Laws of Guyana, and International Laws that require a certain standard of conduct and behaviour from those who are in positions of national leadership when certain events occur in their nations.
Among the issues that the political state in Guyana need to deal with, is its conduct and reaction during the period when certain events were unfolding in Guyana. What was the reaction of the political state when mutilated corpses, indicative of gruesome torture prior to murder, were turning up all over the city?
Did the political state, as it is required to do under the Laws of the Nation, the Constitution of the Nation, and Charters of the United Nations to which Guyana has affirmed its signature, act in a manner that left absolutely no doubt that it was not in favour of what was transpiring? Or did the political state, in response to what were in effect extra-judicial lynchings, exhibit a pattern of Governance that could only be described as reticent, laissez faire, disinterest, attitudes and reactions that served to encourage, rather than discourage the kind of abhorrent extra-judicial excesses that were being undertaken? What was the reaction of the President, the Governing Party, the Minister of Home Affairs, when it was discovered that an activist member of the African Guyanese population was brutally assassinated in front of his house? Was there outrage over an obvious political assassination, or was there an attitude and comments that suggested, “Well he had it coming”?
The Government of every nation, regardless of its politics, is required to conduct itself in a manner that leaves absolutely no doubt in the minds of the general populace that it is acting in the interest of all of the people. There was nothing in the responses of the current Government of Guyana during the period the nation was experiencing horrendous incidents of violent crimes, including vigilante murders, that conveyed such an impression.
The President did not take to the airwaves to address the nation and condemn extra judicial killings with the same fervor he legitimately condemned the abhorrent murders of Minister Sawh et al. He did not take to the airwaves to express his repugnance for the usurping of the power of our justice system by criminal drug traffickers and others. He did not, intuitively recognising the potential chaos the killing of someone like Ronald Waddell could ignite, utter a single word, phrase or sentence that could be construed as recognition of his situational responsibility as a head of state under the existing circumstances.
When one examines the responses of the political state and all of the actors in its employ and under its persuasion during those times, one finds nothing that blends with expectations of a reasonable democratic society. It is like being on Mars.
A Government does not have to overtly support human rights abuses in the nation it governs, in order to bear culpability when such crimes occur. If a Government makes no reasonable effort or attempt, given its legal and administrative obligations, to visit and put a stop to such abuses, and vigorously pursue and punish those responsible, under the law of course, that government is aiding and abetting such abuses.
The legal standard for judging the actions of the Guyana Government is whether its conduct and behaviour, under the prevailing circumstances, was reasonable. This is the standard we are held to as individuals when our conduct and behaviours come under the scrutiny of the Law and Judicial system. My contention is that the Government of Guyana failed that reasonableness test.
The evidence of this was easily accessible and discernible from, among other sources, press reports of the comments and statements emanating from the political state during the period of wanton criminal upheavals.
Robin Williams

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