Cotton Tree, Guyana’s oil and police brutality

Jul 11, 2021 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Though said before, it is worth saying again: it is a struggle to find the encouraging. As events unravel, efforts are made to discover the positive, but sober reality arrives, and the disturbing blankets.
People have been charged for the brutal murders in Cotton Tree, and other related ones. It encouraged that the long arm of the law is probing, finding, and ensnaring those responsible for four killings, two in particular, that are best described as heinous. But as I force myself to give a nod, and say good job to Guyana Police Force sleuths, misgivings linger and strengthen. For on Wednesday, news came that two of those charged for the murders of the Henrys have been released by the presiding magistrate (KN July 7). Though the DPP differed, I am beginning to believe that none of these charges looks like holding up. I must take the plunge, since the investigations and movements in these gruesome and hotly contested killings, for a while now, have become an almost exclusively local affair. That is, spearheaded and managed by Guyanese police, without much of any material input from outsiders for forensics and expert guidance. Foreigners are those to whom we run for everything ranging from counting (elections) borrowing (money) overseeing (oil). Yet on these highly sensitive and most controversial murders, we are determined to go it alone. It is as if the fix is already on, with the whole pantheon of so-called professional paragons – law enforcement, judiciary, media, civil society – going through the motions, with studious devotion to their respective roles in what could be a national charade. I had kept an open mind before, because of the murders themselves and the social fallouts; but now creeping doubts rear their ugly heads. What should encourage, now disturbs.
On oil, and in reasonable times, I would be encouraged. But wherever oil has been present, the reasonable gets disowned and discarded. Chris Ram pointed out that under the terms of the Stabroek Block PSA, this country can only bill oil companies for “reasonable costs and expenses” (KN July 7). As said, oil drives out anything resembling the “reasonable” in men drawn near to it. It would be interesting to see how Exxon reacts to what the Guyana Government decides to be “reasonable” and submit for a positive reception. This much I can say from now – and from the vantage point of Exxon’s dealings with other countries, courts, and the general conduct of its business operations. The top leaders of the company are money hungry and money grabbers of the highest class; they have no equal. Exxon would rob the dead, the impoverished, and the helpless, as its long history testifies. Anything that Guyana may consider to be “reasonable costs and expenses” have certain death waiting, in terms of severe resistance and savage reductions. The outlook is disturbing, the outcome could be worse.
Relative to that third area, police brutality, singled out this Sunday, there is no speck of the encouraging about it, through any type of justifying. First, was the complaint and picture of a woman with a swollen eye, who was involved in a clash with others, and when taken to the station house, got into difficulties with attending officers. The position of the police is that the arrested woman engaged in the confrontational and combative with members of the Force. From the evidence of the media picture in KN, it could be concluded that the combat was a two-way affair, involving some mixing it up by police rank(s) with an aggressive, uncontrollable woman. Though self-defense is an available limb, I think that this cannot be condoned, and should have been more professionally handled, with less disturbing physical results.
What was brutal in a horrific way was the severe damage inflicted by a police officer on his wife during domestic differences. In this instance, there can be no excuse, no hedging. The condition of that battered spouse disturbs immensely. Police officers are held to higher standards of discipline, restraint. It is disturbing that neither prevailed. The Force has a problem on its hands.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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