The indefinite detention of a person freed by the Court should be taken up with the UN Human Rights Commission

Mar 23, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
There was a time, not so long ago, that supporters of and apologists for the PPP and its government boasted that the PPP’s governance style is starkly different from that of the PNC, and they cited the lack of rigged elections, the freedom of the press and the lack of political prisoners, as examples.
But on the first count of rigged elections, while there may not have been any known acts of election rigging, the PPP and its government have demonstrated that they share the PNC’s mindset when it comes to denying the people their right to vote by failing to ensure constitutionally mandated Local Government Elections were held in the last 16 years.
Worse, the PPP actually teamed up with the same PNC, it loves to demonize, to rob Guyanese of their right to vote in Local Government Elections in the name of working of LG legislative reforms, thus proving that the PPP and PNC share the same political DNA.
Now we have the PPP General Secretary saying LG Elections could be held using the old system until reforms are completed. Where was he for 16 years?
On the second count of press freedom, the PPP and PNC also literally teamed up to block the issuance of radio and television licences in the name of working on broadcast legislative reforms.
So while there is an appearance of press freedom with the mushrooming of several television transmitting stations in parts of the country, and independent dailies have been launched, what actually undercuts the claim of press freedom is the government’s unwillingness to allow its taxpayer-funded newspaper and radio and television stations to carry opinions from Guyanese, especially taxpayers, that are opposed to the party and government.
And even though the party and government claim that opposing views are nevertheless carried in the independent dailies, this does not justify their behaviour in denying the people a right to be heard/read in the state media, because in any true democracy, the government is of the people, for the people and by the people.
In Guyana, the government is of, by and for the PPP; the people be damned!
Furthermore, there is still no Freedom of Information legislation, even though President Bharrat Jagdeo promised, during his visit to Trinidad last year April to meet with President Barack Obama and other CARICOM leaders, that on his return to Guyana he will have legislation tabled so that by the end of 2009, a bill will be passed.
We are in March of 2010 and last week, I read where the government said it is not ready. Was it ever ready?
The government’s constant criticism of the independent media for their reportage on events that government doesn’t want exposed should also be seen as a sign of attempts at press muzzling, even though it boasts of press freedom.
The suspension of state ads to SN, the President’s subtle call for businesses to stop advertising in Kaieteur News, the banning of a private media operative from covering events at OP and the State, and the seizure of equipment from Mr. Mark Benshop’s home, also stand out as glaring examples of attempts at press muzzling.
In Linden, we keep reading and hearing the complaints of residents that they are stuck with a state-owned television station that transmits mostly government-approved programming, which points to a denial of the people’s right to diverse sources of information and orchestrated indoctrination of the people so they will sleep, eat, play, work and think PPP.
And even though two Lindeners, Messrs. Mortimer Yearwood and Norman Chapman, had the high court render a decision in their favour to obtain a licence to operate a radio station, the government is dragging its foot in making good on the court’s ruling.
But while the government is in no rush to honour the applications of these two Lindeners who won a court case or even expedite broadcast legislation so we can have an end to government’s radio monopoly, I digress a bit and urge people, especially those who firmly believe the government is discriminating against them, to remember that this same government, after being told by Dr. Yesu Persaud of a screwing up with the Queens Atlantic deal, rushed a bill through Parliament that retroactively corrected the screwing up. Even Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt isn’t this fast.
There are also many instances where this government appeared to have made decisions that favoured and financially benefited ‘one set of people’, while others had to settle for the crumbs falling from the table, but the essence of my point here is that the government does discriminate in its decision-making process, so press freedom is more like freedom to depress.
On the third and final count of political prisoners, let the records show that Messrs. Mark Benschop and Oliver Hinckson, were incarcerated for varying periods of time for crimes the government alleged they committed, but both men were eventually freed without ever being tried.
Some people were and are of the view that these men were actually guilty, but there is a huge difference between how a court of opinion works and how a judicial court works, and because these men who had their freedoms taken away for purported crimes were never processed in a judicial court, their imprisonment arguably were politically motivated.
But if those two cases aren’t politically troubling enough on their own merits, let us now consider that the government has just passed legislation (“Government gives DPP right to appeal verdicts, incarcerate prisoners indefinitely,” Kaieteur News, March 20) seeking to appeal a judge’s ruling, with the intention of locking up a person even after the judge either finds the person not guilty or the case gets tossed for whatever reason.
Nothing is wrong with appealing; it’s what happens after the appeal is made.
In the PNC era under Forbes Burnham, the government, through the police, would arrest, detain and lock up people for exercising their political rights. There was no specific legislation for this despicable behaviour.
Today, the government is looking to legislate the locking up of persons it wants to have locked up, even if those persons have been processed by the judicial system and let go. In other words, this new piece of legislation literally empowers the executive branch to undermine and override the judicial branch and void the checks and balance system concerning the people.
This is not only frightening; it could become an excuse for social disturbance or even violent retaliation against the status quo by those who feel their freedom is being jeopardized.
I don’t know if Dr. Cheddi Jagan would have supported this, but this piece of contemptible legislation needs to be taken up before the CARICOM Secretariat, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the United Nations Human Rights Commission. After all, we are talking about a government drowning in a sea of corruption, in which it appears that only ‘one set of people’ keep ripping off taxpayers and the treasury and they keep getting away with their crookedness under the guise of investigations, while the government is looking to interminably jail those it dislikes or disagrees with. When the government was firing state employees for failing polygraph tests, people hardly spoke up.
Today, the government has armed itself with legislation to allow for wiretapping/eavesdropping and indefinite imprisonment of those it deems criminals. We are definitely walking down an unfamiliar road and people just don’t seem to notice or even care?
Emile Mervin

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