Rohee lacks credibility to institute police reform

Jan 10, 2013 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
I refer to Mr Harry Gill’s letter in the Kaieteur News Jan 5, 2013, in which he blames the opposition for holding the security of the nation at ransom. It is the PPP which has failed to deliver security to the nation for twenty years. The actions of the PPP over the past twenty years make me extremely doubtful that Minister Rohee is serious about reforming the police.
Let us go through a few historical facts to see whether the PPP has ever sent the signals that it desires a professional police force. This Minister allowed a Commissioner who “benefited materially from the drugs trade” to continue in that capacity without even an investigation.
He failed to deliver a forensic lab and instead produced an agency suspected of spying on opposition activists – the Central Intelligence Unit. They have now placed the names of several activists, including yours truly, on a surveillance list.
Gradual steps are being made towards an authoritarian government run by elected oligarchs and buttressed by a few in the private sector connected to the oligarchy through special privileges.
No entity has failed this country in security as much as the PPP. No government has weakened and compromised the security apparatus as much as the PPP. Hundreds of murders have gone uninvestigated and unpunished – some are obvious cover-ups. Documents are disappearing thus making trials impossible. Some of these murders started early in the administration – for example the Good Friday 1993 murder of a young lady Monica Reece. Gill should talk to Guyanese in Georgetown. Some of them will give leads.
As if allowing a compromised Commissioner is not enough, the PPP allowed a now convicted cocaine trafficker to fight crimes on behalf of the State. This is perhaps the greatest example of undermining the capacity of the State since independence.
It would take the Americans to convict this drugs dealer since he was given complete protection by this country’s government.
If any Guyanese wants to have insights into the political aspects of the Buxton freedom fighters they will need to read Mr Freddie Kissoon’s columns in the Guyana Chronicle. Imagine the great powers in the PPP allowed their greatest nemesis, Kissoon, to write in the Chronicle, only on these events, because of their willingness capitalise politically on the events and the suffering of innocents.
Kissoon also is the only Guyanese – I stand corrected – who has published peer-reviewed and scholarly work on this period (see Kissoon, F., 2007, “African extremism in the age of political decay: the case of Guyana.” In Governance, Conflict Analysis and Conflict Resolution, Grant, C.H. and R. Mark Kirton (eds.), Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers).
The lesson here is the PPP is only willing to address crimes in a selected manner and exploit heinous crimes for political gains.
They have continued to fail the nation and even their own members and supporters. We don’t know who killed Minister Sawh and family, for instance. Who were behind the Lusignan, Bartica, Agricola and Lindo Creek massacres?
Why did the PPP refuse an official Inquiry into the riots of Jan 12, 1998? This inquiry was left to a private organization to do.
This is never optimal. Without official sanctions the country will not be able to fashion solutions.
The PPP decided early on that it would not do police reforms, in spite of many warnings on Oct 5, 1992, that reforming the police ought to be its top priority. It did nothing and even maintained the old Commissioner and structure.
Yet Harry Gill has the gall to question the valid points raised by Mr Granger and Mr Ramjattan.
Gill has conveniently brushed under the carpet the PPP’s sordid crime-fighting record. As a matter of fact, the PPP does not have a crime-fighting record. It has a crime-perpetuating record. But there is a more insidious side to this strategy.
The PPP can stir up ethnic fears in East Indian villages by blaming the opposition for crimes while not doing anything – they can suck cane and blow whistle! Fortunately, East Indians are beginning to see the strategy of destruction that has accounted for a decline in their population from 51% in 1992 to 43% today.
Since Mr Rohee lacks minimum credibility as Minister of Home Affairs, it is important for President Ramotar – if he is genuinely concerned about police reform – to call on the Parliamentary parties to serve as part of this reform process.  The reform of the police can serve as a confidence-building mechanism and start a new era of cooperation between the government and opposition.
As this letter highlights, I am deeply suspicious of the PPP and doubt it genuinely wants to reform the police.  Therefore, I hope the Ramotar government will prove me wrong by bringing everyone into this reform process.
Tarron Khemraj

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