17 men burned to death but the causation goes on

Mar 11, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

A man was sentenced to prison for stealing a cell phone. This happened days after the worst prison riots in any English-speaking country in the Caribbean, and trust me, Jamaica has some of the most feared convicts jailed for gruesome murders anywhere in the Americas except Mexico. Then another young man was imprisoned for three years on a possession charge of 15 grams of marijuana. The brother of a well-known sports official was remanded over a wounding incident.
This is Guyana for you. This is Guyana that will spend hundreds of millions to celebrate 50 years of Independence at the end of May this year. I read in this newspaper the views solicited by Kaieteur News on what Independence means. The respondents waxed lyrical. It is not what Independence means, it is what you have done with it after you got it. This will be the content of a forthcoming column.
The media recently highlighted the unbelievable plight of a convict who lost his leg while working for the prison authorities in the cemetery. Why did the media have to do that when compensation was due from the relevant Ministry and a prosthetic leg should have been given to him from the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre?
But do you think this is an isolated case? There are many more like him who got seriously injured and received insulting sums as compensation. The abomination may even be worse in the private sector, where many guards and carpenters have endured horrible injuries but were cast into the wilderness of an uncivilized jungle to survive and provide for their families. This is a brutal, bestial country where nihilism has long replaced reason and humanity. It will only stop when the population confronts its self-destructive fears.
I have had three complaints so far that there are police roadblocks on the East Bank highway, far from any police station, and drivers are pulled over at random and their vehicles searched. I encountered one yesterday where I live and protested it to Assistant Commissioner, Marlon Chapman. Not even one driver would say to the police, ‘Sir, on what suspicion are you searching my vehicle?” At least ask the question. The police rank has to offer an explanation.
The United States, France and the UK are facing unrelenting terrorist threats, but my friends tell me all the time that they have never experienced a police roadblock and a stop-and-search exercise. Police act on suspicion when they intercept vehicles. That doesn’t happen in Guyana. An entire population accepts it.
Well-known diaspora personality and frequent letter-writer, Wesley Kirton disagreed with me in a letter he published to this newspaper. It was in response to my comment that I have instructed my daughter not to submit to a routine traffic pull-over, since the police do not engage in routine stops. Kirton wrote that is going too far; he opined that the police order to stop should be complied with.
That may be so and Kirton is right. What I didn’t see in Wesley’s letter is an elaboration or even an explanation on motive. I am absolutely sure, Wesley knows from living in Washington, D.C. that the police will pull you over and if you request a reason, one will be given. He is right. You must stop when requested to do so. What I am contending is that a policeman cannot be insane to intercept you on the road without a reason. There must be one. Based on Wesley’s concern, I will advise my daughter to stop, but I would hope when she solicits a reason, there will be one. Humans operate with motive.
Back to the causation of the prison riot. The nation awaits the report of the inquiry. But it is the recommendations section I am overzealous to see. How will they deal with overcrowding? Are the commissioners going to do their research and examine the charges for each of the inmates in the Camp Street institution? I hope they do, because you have to get to the root cause of overcrowding, and it does not derive from long delays in trial only.
Maybe the commissioners will find quite a large number of remands in Camp Street because they cannot raise the gigantic bail sums set by unreasonable magistrates. Maybe they will find convicts who stole mangoes, cell phones and shop-lifted milk powder. If the commissioners cannot connect the sentencing structure of the courts, especially in the lower courts, to overcrowding, then they are wasting their time. In Guyana, the wheels of justice move slowly and sometimes not at all.

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17 men burned to death but the causation goes on

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