The killing of Kelvin Fraser reveals a dead society

Jun 16, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

On Monday afternoon, the funeral for Kelvin Fraser was held. While in the churchyard, we were told that the owner of the minibus that transported the protestors from Patentia to Georgetown was summoned to Brickdam Police Station with her bus. She was instructed that the bus cannot ply the transportation trade anymore.
The police are smart of course. They know that we are going to court over the seized Canter truck. So they have not confiscated the minibus and they have given no reason on paper. If we go before a judge to allow the bus to go back into business, they will deny they have issued a road embargo on the vehicle.
But the owner is afraid to conduct business because she is scared of potential police harassment. And that fear is real. It will happen.
The shooting to death of an unarmed 16-year-old would have caused nationwide anger in most countries but not in Guyana. But more importantly, look at what the political authorities have done to those who dare to protest this killing.
They have illegally impounded a truck that transported to Georgetown the school friends of Kelvin Fraser and have virtually put out of business the owner of a minibus that also carried protestors to the city.
To date, except for Robert Corbin’s effort in seeking a High Court order against the police to release the truck, no other person in the wider opposition movement and in civil society has come forward to register their rejection of the oppression of the owners of these vehicles.
The dangerous implications are evanescently clear. If the police can seek to confiscate a vehicle because it carried protestors, and threaten a minibus owner with sanctions for doing the same, then why can’t it move against other forms of private property in the same fascist way?
Most amazingly, none of the business organizations has seen the frightening implications of what the Government has done. The way is being cleared for an open assault on private property but our business class is drowning in the pool of fear that they cannot see that they are courting their own imprisonment.
Here is a likely scenario. The political bosses in the seat of power identify a business place where a high-level opposition confabulation took place. The police visit the premises the next day, trump up a charge against the owner and demand that the business stops functioning until the case is heard in court. This is what it is going to come to.
Those opposition parties that have dismissed the pleas of the owners of those two vehicles may end up in the same fire. Fate can play cruel games with the destinies of men and women. To date, except for Robert Corbin, no one has come to the rescue of these two helpless victims of fascism in Guyana.
Mr. Lincoln Lewis told me that outside National Assembly, when PNC Parliamentarians saw the demonstrations of the Patentia school children and villagers, Mr. Corbin announced in the presence of five other PNC Parliamentarians that he was going there. Mr. Lewis said no one chose to follow Mr. Corbin.
As it turned out, Mr. Corbin’s intervention was helpful because he secured bail for the truck driver. What more evidence does a citizen want about the death of Guyana? Just two blocks away from the National Assembly, a protest movement was under way with over 150 persons including 52 school children, over a horrible police shooting of a 16-year-old and of all the opposition MPs in the House, only one chose to visit the site of the protest
At the time of writing, the AFC has shown no interest in fighting for the two vehicle owners. With all the publicity this protest-movement has received in the media from last Wednesday, no one from ACDA, GHRA, Red Thread have joined the efforts to help these two small business people.
Only one came from the PNC – Mr. Corbin. Only one came from the TUC – Lincoln Lewis. Only one came from the WPA and that was Dr. David Hinds who was visiting Guyana.
Some frightening ghost has devoured the soul of this nation. No one, with the exception of Lincoln Lewis, Norris Witter and Mark Benschop wants to hold a placard and voice even a tiny voice against fascism in Guyana.
The publicity seekers that picket the Office of the President for the rights of the child legislation perhaps do not accept that Kelvin Fraser was a child. Will someone read the final rites for this dead country?

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The killing of Kelvin Fraser reveals a dead society

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