BRUTAL AND SENSELESS

Jan 08, 2019 Editorial

According to police reports, over the past four years, the month of January has proven to be one of the homicidal months each year, and this year seems to be following the same trend, as four murders were committed in the first two days of 2019.
Last year may have ended with the fewest homicides in decades, but it took only a few hours in the New Year to register the latter, sad statistics.
There was a time in Guyana when a single murder would shock the nation to its core, but not anymore. This kind of violence seems to be spiraling out of control. Murders have become so rampant in the country that some have regarded the occurrence as a norm. Everyone should be concerned with the brazenness of these murderers. It’s just as though they are demons in human form, whose motives for murder range from robbery to pure malice.
It was early in the New Year when the bodies of Harricharran Samaroo and his brother Premcharran Samaroo were found by their mother in her backyard. As reported, the brothers went over to their mother’s residence at Bush Lot Village on the Corentyne to usher in the New Year with her and an overseas-based Guyanese, who came in the country just a day prior. The family was planning to have a good time. However, fate had other plans. They could not have envisaged what was in store for them.
The brothers and the visitor were having a few drinks when three armed bandits with masks on their faces and with guns and knives, pounced on them. The younger brother was shot several times while his brother was mercilessly stabbed. Both succumbed to their injuries. The police have since issued bulletins for two men in relation to the savage killings.
Still on the Corentyne, Guyana Defence Force lieutenant, Mark Bagot, was stabbed to death during a heated argument at a liquor shop. Initial reports stated that Bagot was imbibing with the assailant, identified as a 26-year-old Black Bush Polder, who turned himself in to the Police. The fourth murder occurred in Essequibo when a man from Cuyuni allegedly chopped his father-in-law to death. The victim, who was the community’s Toshao, had gone to the aid of his daughter, whom the suspect was beating.
The possibility of a never-ending cycle of violence cannot be far from anyone’s mind. People want more action and less talk from the authorities. They want results; and by now it is pellucid that the government alone cannot do it. It would be far more productive if all stakeholders were to come together to hold institutionalized discussions on solutions to the problem. The fact that most murders are committed by those in possession of guns suggests that there is the need to make it more difficult for such weapons to be obtained. The state must use its security apparatus effectively to protect the citizens from the vicious criminals who continue to murder the innocent almost daily.
Even as we sympathize with the relatives whose loved ones were murdered, we must also advocate for more to be done to identify the risk-factors and predispositions that have caused perpetrators to commit violent murders and other forms of crimes. At no time should society tolerate such brutal and senseless murders.

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