The evidence of our self-destruction is everywhere

Aug 10, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

In my July 23, 2017 column captioned, “The cruel, uncaring, indifferent society that never learns,” I wrote the following; “If you check the commentators, columnists and letter-writers for all the newspapers since the burning down of the Camp Street prison, without exception, there have been strong critiques of the sentencing structure in the court system. It took the fiery demolition of the central jail, the burning down of the prison warders’ club opposite the prison, the murder of a warden, the serious injury to another and dangerous escapees roaming for Guyanese to realize that the sentencing disparities and the injustice that inhere in the court system are factors that can trigger what happened in the Camp Street jail.
The obvious question is where were these voices all these years when young first offenders were imprisoned for minor offences, when people accused of petty crimes were assigned enormous bail that they could not have afforded, when young men were jailed for the mere possession of a smoking utensil? Where were all these voices when a daily dose of bestial justice was dispensed to poor folks who appeared before the country’s magistrate?
Prisoners rioted and burned down the central jail and suddenly people with doctorates, other kinds of qualifications, people with status, people from civil society, those from the churches are informing us that the justice system and the way it treats the poorer sections of our country can lead to the kind of things that occurred during the Camp Street jail inferno.”
In the space of one week, three prominent citizens and a major political party have joined the chorus – businessman, Clinton Urling; Mr. Don Singh of the pressure group RISE; attorney Ralph Ramkarran and the Alliance for Change (AFC). Urling and Singh wrote letters to the newspapers, Ramkarran did it in his Stabroek News column, and the AFC passed a motion at its recent meeting of its national executive, citing the penalty and bail structure for marijuana charges as sending too many young people to prison.
Now interesting, the AFC did not pass a motion at its national general conference in February this year and also its previous national executive meeting held three months ago. Obviously, the prison mayhem is galvanizing people to speak out, and one must be cynical to ask as I did in my lengthy quote above, why didn’t they raise their pen and voices before.
Is it possible that events could have turned out differently if they had? The answer is yes. But we are a self-destructive nation. We watch the tide of nihilism as its creeps up on the shore and only when the inundation wreaks havoc we find the time to lament.
The AFC’s position is an exasperating one. About eighteen months ago, two lawyers – Nigel Hughes and Mark Waldron – drafted the amendment to the drug law, whereby penalties for small amount of ganja possession would not attract mandatory prison sentence. The changes also take the bail structure for such charges. The Bill was on the order paper of the House a year ago, but is nowhere near to being seen or heard. The Attorney-General is quoted in the press as saying the amendment is not a priority at the moment for the government.
The President also said in relation to the amendments, that Guyana must be careful what it copies from the developed world. Maybe President Granger didn’t do his research when he issued that caution. The last time I checked, Jamaica is still a third world land and possession of up to forty grams is legal. I think it is unnecessary to cite the number of third world countries where it is virtually impossible to be jailed for small amounts of marijuana. I don’t think in any country in the world, except Guyana, a person found with a smoking utensil is jailed for three years.
Any politician that refuses to accept changes in a drug law that sends young people to jail for possession of a smoking utensil is unfit to be elected, and the electorate should reject them. Such a politician does not belong to the 21st century.
The AFC should explain to this nation why the Hughes/Waldron amendments were tabled under the name of its parliamentarian, Michael Carrington, was put on the order paper to be debated, but was suddenly de-prioritized. The AFC has now moved a motion via the head of its youth arm, Cynthia Rutherford, requesting the change in the law. Why do that? The amendment is on the order paper of the House. The leader of Govt. business in the House is the PM, who is from the AFC.

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