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Torture report silent on its widespread use by the security forces

Dec 13, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
The Working People’s Alliance (WPA) notes the belated release by government of the report of its investigation into allegations of torture that was committed against a child, 15-year-old Twyon Thomas, by officers of the Guyana Police Force.
While the report identifies the perpetrators of the crime against Thomas and recommends action to be taken against those who are held to be responsible, it is silent on the widespread and virtually routine use of torture by members of the security forces.
WPA disagrees with the conclusion of Assistant Commissioner Mackhanlall who investigated the matter when he reported, “If the ranks involved were properly supervised and they had understood their role as law enforcement officers, and acted professionally, this incident would have been prevented, hence the force would not have faced the embarrassment it faces due to this incident.”
The Assistant Commissioner is wrong to treat this as an isolated aberration, a departure from the norm. The tragedy is that resort to brutality and degrading treatment in the extraction of statements from suspects is the norm, not a departure from it.
Had the Jagdeo government acted on the credible allegations of torture that were earlier leveled against the security forces, instead of excusing those heinous acts as mere “roughing up”, it would have sent a signal to the security forces that the inhumane and cruel treatment of persons in their custody would be punishable under the law.
The iron fact is that the use of torture as an instrument of crime fighting in Guyana has the tacit and in some instances explicit support of the government. And the torturers know it. Even as citizens’ anger raged against the torture of the child Thomas, prisoners who protested against the undue delay by the authorities in taking them to court were being driven around in a prison vehicle for more than four hours as a form of punishment. To move prisoners around in a poorly ventilated vehicle in hot sunshine for hours is yet another form of torture and should not be tolerated. No pious platitudes about professionalism and supervision can obscure the fact that brutishness and inhumanity have become standard operating procedure.
Until such time as the Jagdeo government demonstrates its abhorrence of the use of torture by enacting the necessary laws to criminalise its practice and punish the torturers, citizens would be justified in treating the government’s assurances of no further repetition as just what they are, pure hot air.
Working People’s Alliance (WPA)

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