An oligarch falls

May 08, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Mr. Henry Greene is finished. He should never have been a policeman with a substantial badge. He was not made of such material. Greene spent twenty years under the PPP rule, and I doubt very much that past presidents, Burnham, Hoyte and Jagan would have tolerated his excessive and constant indiscretions.
I found it intriguing that one of the factors said to favour Greene was the credibility problem of the complainant. Be that as it may, Mr. Henry Greene is not without credibility problems too. On trial was not only Greene but then President, Bharrat Jagdeo who made him Commissioner and awarded him an extension of contract for five years beyond his retirement date.
The story of Greene’s American visa as revealed in the Wikileaks cables on Guyana was the boiling point for his removal. Nowhere in the world would a public officer be made into the Commissioner of Police when the American Government refused to give him a visa over his alleged involvement in the narcotics trade whether as an assistant, a participant, a silent conspirator or a trafficker himself.
Henry Greene should have been peremptorily dismissed from his security occupation over the visa denial. Surely, one has to be a downright fool to think some person at the US Embassy in Georgetown didn’t like Greene and sought to victimize him. The American State Department would not withhold any form of visa to a Commissioner of Police based on hearsay evidence.
It is for this reason that the 10th Parliament as a matter of moral urgency needs to hold a judicial inquiry into the Jagdeo reign from 2002 to the end of his tenure.
There are tall tales about the long career of Henry Greene, some of which cannot be mentioned here for legal reasons. But there is one that needs to be described and it is best left to the person who made the allegation against Greene to do so.
Dexter VanVeen is a friend of mine and the cousin of a sports writer of the Kaieteur News, Rawle Welch. At the time Dexter lived one block from me in Wortmanville and Greene was Dexter’s neighbour.
From those days I knew Greene well. He came into my mother-in-law’s supermarket quite often. Three years ago I sought a comment from him on an alleged statement he made when he referred to President Jagdeo as a great leader. Public servants, much less a Commissioner of Police are not inclined to make such open political judgements unless the Government practices paramountcy of the party.
I told him I had his speech on disc and would gladly play it for him. Greene was totally evasive and kept asking me about my old mother-in-law whom he knew so well by buying cooking gas from her shop. He never gave me a response.
My last encounter with Greene left me bitter and there and then I wanted him to be removed as Commissioner of Police. Here is a description of the incident.
When UG was moved to Turkeyen in 1972, the student population was not more than five hundred, if so many. By that time the Beharry patriarchs had built their home on an estate at the junction of the UG Access Road and the highway. By 2010, the UG student population had swollen to five thousand.
With several hundreds of students coming from the upper East Coast Demerara, students catch the shuttle cars at that junction. The Beharry family put up signs preventing parking on either side of the parapets covering the entire Beharry estate which was about a quarter of a mile going south on the UG Access Road. It meant students had to walk down the road to catch the shuttle. This was usurpation of the public parapets.
The Sparendaam police station began removing the taxis. I spoke to Greene and he told me that he would allow the shuttle service since the cars were not in violation of any traffic laws. The next day, the drivers were hauled off to the station. I went to the officer in charge and he told me that he got his orders from the Commissioner.
It was clear to me that certain persons made contact with Greene and the shuttle service was removed on his orders. The students and the drivers, it seemed, had no right to access the parapets that were owned by the State. The situation was corrected by the intervention of the Ministry of Works but that Ministry failed to turn up in the court when an injunction was sought against the Beharry Company.
Greene should not have been promoted as a police officer. And he should still be charged for rape.

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