APNU dismisses Linden Commission report as ‘wishy washy’

Mar 09, 2013 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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–    Roopnarine says slams compensation as “disgraceful”
–    says “Justice has not been done”
The country’s main opposition coalition, APNU, yesterday, described as “wishy washy” the report by the Commission of Inquiry into last July’s Linden protest that left three men dead.
Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, Parliamentarian for APNU, said that the section of the report dealing with compensation consisted of “disgraceful pages. “
Attorney Basil Williams, also an APNU Parliamentarian, said that while the Commission apportioned blame to the Police for the shooting to death of the three men and wounding several others, it sought to create an “exit” route for the Police.
No one was specifically named for being responsible for the deaths.
APNU said that the unjustified shooting to death of unarmed protesters at Mackenzie-Wismar on July 18, 2012, was confirmed by the Commission of Inquiry.
The report noted, “The positive evidence reveals – no police officer was injured; policemen were armed with guns; no evidence that anyone else was so armed” and that “from these factors, one can therefore reasonably conclude that the fatal shooting was done by the Police.”
APNU took issue with the Commissioners, saying they were bent on attributing blame to the protestors for failing to abide by the conditions of the permission granted by the Police for the march.
Dr Roopnaraine quoted the report as saying that “the evidence revealed that the conditions were breached and therein was the birth of the ensuing problems.”
He pointed out that the leaders and activists did not escape censure by the Commissioners, who stated that “the organisers of the protest must accept some responsibility or what subsequently transpired on the 18th July, 2012.”
APNU called these aspects of the report as a misguided attempt at a display of even-handedness. “The Commissioners can be said to have strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel.”
Dr Roopnaraine declared that the Commissioners were “predictably strong on the legal niceties and disappointingly lame on the human dimensions of the Linden tragedy.”
He said that nowhere in the report is there “the slightest hint of awareness of the anguish and distress that drove thousands of our citizens to take to the streets in defence of their human rights and the well-being of their families.”
Instead, he said by a curious and twisted logic, “the victims of a crime are portrayed as responsible for the crime.”
According to Dr Roopnaraine, the report is devoid of any concerns with human rights; with neither their defence nor their violation drawing comment from the Commissioners.
He said that this want of human solidarity is more blatant when considering the “contemptuous so-called compensation” awarded to the families of the dead and wounded.
“It has to be said that the pages of the Report dealing with compensation to the estates of the three dead men and the injured persons, written from a great height, are far and away it’s most shameful,” Dr Roopnaraine stated.
For example, he said that the award to the estate of 18-year-old Ron Somerset is equal to less than five years per capita GDP from Guyana, based on 2012 prices.
“Is this what a Guyanese life is worth? When did life stop being priceless?”
He said that the awards are predicated on a static view of the lifetime chances of the individuals killed, adding that there is not the slightest recognition that these could be lives of potentially great Guyanese, cut down in their prime.
“This contradicts the international stance Guyana has traditionally supported that the lives of the poor and powerless, or Third World people, are as valuable as all others, or First World people,” Dr Roopnaraine stated.
He said there is no recognition by the Commissioners that many countries have struggled in a humane way to arrive at a multi-dimensional view of how to compensate for the loss of human life.
Dr Roopnaraine made reference to the Ogden Actuarial Tables that govern compensation in the courts of the United Kingdom.
He said that the Commissioners completely ignore the issue of psychological wounding in a situation where citizens, including children, continue to suffer from post-traumatic disorders consequent on the violence and murders they witnessed on July 18, last year.
APNU rejected the view of Chairman of the Commission, Justice Lensley Wolfe, that justice has been done.
“With the finding that the Linden martyrs died at the hands of the Police, a beginning has been made. But justice is still a long way off.”
He said that APNU will work for the establishment of a Board of Assessors charged with the review of the awards handed down by the Commission so that due and full recognition will be given to those who suffered from the brutal and fatal assaults at the hands of the police in the course of the Linden protests.
“Nothing less will suffice.”

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