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The TSU remit has to be revised

Oct 05, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
There was a time when the words ‘lawlessness’ and ‘wickedness’ carried the force of their conviction. Without absolutely knowing their meaning, you instinctively knew they referred to something or someone extremely and undeniably scornful.
When I read the report (in Kaieteur News, 3rd October) captioned, “TSU rank shoots Lindener over friend’s paramour” all the words that came to mind seemed inappropriate to accurately convey my reaction. It is a struggle to find words that carry the same sense of denouncement when they have been said and heard over and over again about this same kind of mindless, willful shooting by the Guyana security services.
Impossible to believe that the Tactical Service Unit (TSU) rank, this carefully trained individual, supposedly possessed of a specialist ability to judge a dangerous situation and give adequate protection to the public as needed should react as he did; firstly by ‘slapping’ Mark Moses then seemingly by reflex, as if this bullying did not satisfy his vicious bloodlust he should attempt to kill the youth in cold blood.  I mean kill not shoot – it was the youth’s good fortune that the weapon ‘merely snapped’ as Kaieteur News reported.
The TSU rank’s blood thirstiness yet unsatisfied, he thinks nothing of shooting someone who is in no way posing any kind of threat. This was not an exercise in tactics or specialist judgement. It was an exercise in the power this rank (and I use that word with all its connotations) knows he has because despite handing himself into the police station, he knows too that he will receive no disciplinary action over it.
What is glaring and must be treated with the utmost seriousness is that this TSU rank’s remit is boundless. He knows that he can do whatever he wants – knows that whatever he does is sanctioned and condoned by the government which he serves. He does not have to protect anyone, he does not have to diffuse altercations between anyone, and he can kill innocent people who raise a voice (not a weapon, just their voice) of protest against his over-exercising his “powers.”
It is not too improbable that he would have shot the child if it was she who raised her voice to protest at the treatment of her cousin. And here lies the seriousness of the man’s actions. It must be to drive terror into the minds of the very citizens he should be protecting. The woman must be terrified of him and his fellow rank, the man must fear him and the child too must be petrified of him. If every member of a society lives in terror of its police force, its army, its government, what is the nature of that society?
I once would have reached for the word ‘Lawless’ but it no longer fits. Fascist still has the odiousness that describes such a society where the government and its security services rule by terror.
The action of this TSU rank is sickening and shows the absolute disregard for the rights of Guyanese people, that’s the prevailing order. This order must change. The TSU’s remit has to be revised; and there should be a reconsideration of the UK Metropolitan Police offer to train the Guyana Police Force. Why was this even refused?
I consider Kerwin Greene a hero who was not afraid, did not feel intimidated, who was sure he had the protection of his rights to intervene when he saw an act of injustice – whether or not this was by an officer of the law or his fellow citizen. It might take that kind of heroism or at least a strong compulsion to stand up for yours and the rights of your fellow Guyanese to restore Guyana to a civil society in which its people do not fear being gunned down for any insignificant reason by members of the security services.
Dr Michelle Asantewa

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