The GDF and GPF owe the nation an apology

Oct 09, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) and the Guyana Police Force (GPF) owe the nation an apology for their role in election riggings.
They played a part in denying the people the right to the ballot in choosing a government of their choice guaranteed by the constitution. Others who also played a role in rigging should tender an apology.
No one in the Army or Police can deny their role in rigging.
As a youngster in July 1973, I remember very well seeing ballots (with “X” in the box next to PPP and some ballots strewn in the cane fields and canals in Port Mourant. Cane cutters recounted to me seeing helicopters dumping ballots all over the place by GDF soldiers.
I recalled seeing poll clerks and poll watchers gun butted when hey tried to accompany soldiers who had seized the ballot boxes. People were driven with fears when well armed soldiers invaded their communities with armed personnel carriers and threatening people who massed to oppose rigging. They pointed their guns at voters telling them to go home. The soldiers seizing ballot boxes was a disgraceful act that was exposed to the world in the international media.
On the role of the GDF (and by extension the GPF) in election rigging, the discipline forces can be excused for their role in riggings because they are required to follow commands of their officers all the way to the orders given by the government of the day. If the soldiers or police were ordered (and they were indeed ordered as such) to mark ballots, stuff ballot boxes, fetch or discard the boxes, they had to obey commands or face discipline (expulsion, demotion, watched with suspicion, etc.). But those officers with any moral or ethical scruples would disobey commands that are unreasonable or would be in violation of the law but they would lose their bread and butter.
Rigging elections is a criminal act and those who participated in rigging broke the law. They can be excused if they show remorse but so far none of them has shown any remorse. Once democracy was restored in 1992, those who played a role in electoral frauds should have tendered an apology. It is still not too late to say sorry. Failure to do so, they should have been prosecuted for they violated a sacrosanct act of voters – took away their vote guaranteed to voters by law.
After Dr. Jagan was elected, he should have ordered an investigation into electoral frauds and prosecute those who rigged elections. He would have sent a clear message on electoral and other forms of corruption.
On apology for rigging, for anyone to say 40 years after the act, that they have nothing to apologise for their role in denying people their right to vote, they should be prosecuted.
Their action is no different from what took place in South Africa when Whites denied non-Whites their right to vote.
For anyone to equate election riggings with a judge’s ruling (in 1998) that a photo ID card is not required for voting, does not know the difference between right and wrong, justice and injustice.
Vishnu Bisram

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The GDF and GPF owe the nation an apology

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