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Officialdom supports discrimination

May 15, 2014 Editorial

Officialdom has many privileges and this has been the case from time immemorial. Those at the top would simply lord it over those at the bottom with help from the Administration. The result is that there is the prevailing view that there are two sets of laws: one for the rich and famous and another for the plebs.
In Guyana the Administration has done nothing to remove this perception despite the objections of the various social organisations in the society. Sometimes people have had to approach the courts for what they perceived to be equality in justice. But it goes without saying that regardless of some of the court rulings, nothing has changed.
The most recent outrage involved the actions of a cadet officer in the Guyana Police Force. More than two weeks ago this policeman accosted a young man whom he believed was a witness to a robbery on the policeman’s relative. The policeman played Russian roulette with the young man and ended up shooting him in his mouth. This policeman is still to be charged.
The converse is that an ordinary person who would have pulled the trigger would have been paraded before the court within hours of the shooting. No one can readily explain the reason for the apparent foot-dragging in this case.
This was not the first instance of a policeman shooting a man in his mouth. One policeman attached to the Brickdam Police Station shot a Charles Street resident in his mouth. This man lived for a few days before he died as a result of the shooting. The policeman was never charged. In fact, he was never even arrested.
About a year ago, some policemen shot and killed a young man who was celebrating his birthday.  In an attempt to be clever, the hierarchy of the Guyana Police Force detained two policemen who were on the patrol but certainly not involved in the shooting. As the ballistics investigation revealed, these two did not fire their weapons. The police refused to touch or even finger the other person. A young life has been snuffed out and the parents have not yet sought legal action against the police.
A policeman shot Jermaine Wilkinson, was charged with manslaughter, never allowed to spend a day in the lock ups, and later spirited out of the country. The police control immigration and are quick to detain anyone fleeing justice. This time they facilitated the escape from prosecution.
We have had cases of others on the right side of the social track escaping justice as though that is their birthright. And the list is long. Former Minister of the Government Kellawan Lall discharged his firearm in a public place and was never asked to account for his actions. A public outcry caused the then President Bharrat Jagdeo to demand a ballistic check of Lall’s weapon. That was just a smokescreen. Lall was later sent abroad as an ambassador.
A policeman causes an accident on the Demerara Harbour Bridge. When confronted by the Chairman of the Bridge Company, not only does the policeman assault the Bridge official, he snatches the man’s phone and throws it into the Demerara River. The Bridge official reports to the police and has his phone replaced but gets no further action.
A Minister of Government crashed into a family; three months later the Director of Public Prosecutions announced that the Minister would not be prosecuted. It took three months for the nation to complete the cover-up that would allow the Minister to escape prosecution.
Over and over people in the executive class enjoy what those in the lower class do not. With their money the state allows them to offer compensation.  The relatives of the policeman who shot the young man have approached the mother of the young man with an offer of compensation. She has refused.
The Minister involved in the accident had his case dropped because he compensated the victims of his car crash. We must now wonder when these privileged people would be allowed to kill someone and escape prosecution by offering to compensate the relatives of the deceased.

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