Mark Benschop: A tragedy in the making

Mar 19, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Can the election campaign which has begun (the PPP’s has started with the President’s cuss down at Babu John earlier this month) save the life of Mark Benschop? If I am to answer that question, I would say yes. And Benschop should be glad that the election season is on.
No ruling party wants to be seen liquidating its harshest anti-government critics during an election year. It would be more than counter-productive. It may well be self-destructive.
Not since the prosecution and persecution of the leaders of the Working People’s Alliance by the Forbes Burnham regime in the seventies has this country seen the spotlight of oppression fall upon a particular radical citizen, Mark Benschop.
There is this eerie feeling that the concatenation of state conspiracies against Benschop may end in tragedy.
State agents in this an election period may not want to go that far as to tamper with Benschop’s life but it looks like there is certainly an eagerness to deny him his freedom. One fears that the State wants to imprison Benschop badly.
One does not know where to begin to enumerate the occasions of persecution and prosecution of this known activist.
While in court on non-traffic matters, Benschop came out only to find policemen waiting to charge him for “excessively” tinted window. It means that the upper echelons of the police force planned it.
Benschop wasn’t hauled in during a traffic campaign. For obstruction of traffic which on conviction does not carry a custodial sentence, he was made to spend three days and two nights in the Brickdam lock-up.
He was charged along with me. The case has begun in the traffic court and the police witnesses are on the stand.
The trial continues on Friday, March 25 at 10.30 hours. I cannot detail the witness testimonies on this page; the matter is sub judice.
But interesting things have been said especially a particular question asked of the witness by the magistrate. To question Benschop on a simple matter of obstruction, two truck loads of policemen and the officer in charge of the Ruimveldt police station waited in the evening until midnight to escort him to the station.
Why that couldn’t be done in the day time? There seems to be a vengeance in the pursuit to get Benschop. The officer in that episode was harshly transferred to Berbice because he failed to effect the arrest of Benschop that night.
In the history of serving injunctions in this country, how many times do you see four policemen accompany the marshal, and how often is there more than one marshal? Benschop was served with injunction papers and two marshals were accompanied by four policemen. Guyana does not have any law, not even a section of another some other law relating to internet content.
Unlike the traditional libel laws, you cannot sue a person in Guyana for something said about them on the internet. That obtains in some other countries but I don’t know of such a situation in Guyana. I stand corrected. The police arrived at Benschop’s charity foundation and invited him to go to Eve Leary about what has been posted on his web page. Why not interview him at his office?
Perhaps the most frightening incident that does not auger well for the freedom of Mark Benschop is the incident at Diamond outside the house of Kwame McCoy.
Benschop was attacked and physically assaulted. I saw blood on his hands when I picked him up to retrieve his ruined SUV. His vehicle was badly damaged.
The private media was in full swing when the police arrived at Mc Coy’s home. Any police officer could see that Benschop was the victim. The police allowed Mc Coy at 13.00 hours to leave but kept Benschop and placed him in the lock-up only allowing bail at midnight.
It is one of the most fascist moments in post-colonial Guyana and one of the dirtiest moments in the history of the Guyana police force.
This was fascism plain and simple. A victim is brutalised with his property destroyed and his precious items stolen from his car.
But he ended up being arrested and remanded to the lock-up. This happened under the PPP Government not the PNC.
Do the Berbician folks know about this incident? Are they happy with the power of Mr. Kwame Mc Coy in Guyana? Do they know where Kwame Mc Coy’s power is derived from? It comes from a man who is blatant in his lies to the Berbician people. Mc Coy and this gentleman are alike.

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