The Henry cousins and Orin Boston: Demonic politics

Sep 26, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – The shooting to death of Afro-Americans have gone on before half the population of this country was born. Within recent times its graphic nature has given birth to a hugely influential body named Black Lives Matter.
Reaction from the wanton killing of Afro-Americans has come from some of the biggest names in sports and the entertainment business in the US. Some fiery Black activists in the US have unleashed unmitigated fury on the police. To date, no one in support of Black Lives Matter has ever even remotely hinted that a state governor or the president had direct responsibility or had a political agenda in the police murders of Black people. In Guyana, sociological murders and police killings since the failure of election rigging are being given a political twist that is diabolical and sickening. If not confronted we will end up at the precipice. It is a long way to fall.
When the two Henry cousins were found murdered in Cotton Tree, the election madness was still in the air. Without a shred of proof, politicians from the PNC went up to the Region Five village and incited villagers to commit violent attacks on East Indians.
In philosophy something may be wrong yet logical. It is called context. In the context of opposition politics, Joseph Harmon and David Granger (please note, I don’t believe Burnham had racist instincts, I believe Granger has) found it tactical to accuse the PPP of being behind the killings.
It was for us in society to condemn that theory. But many of the civil society groups in this country – Guyana Human Rights Association, Transparency Institute, the women groups, etc. – refused to reject the rumour and linkage of a political crime. A linkage that made absolutely no sense.
In a column in that period (September 2020) of Sunday September 13, 2020, captioned, “Claudette Singh: The 2020 election and the Region 5 mayhem,” I wrote these words: “Why would Indian people kill two youths as an act of race hate knowing that their party won the election and their party is ruling and that such brutality will bring vendetta upon the PPP?” We come now to the fatal police gunning down of Orin Boston of Dartmouth in Region Two.
There was a recent letter published in the mainstream media by the Working People’s Alliance. I stress again that in philosophy something may be wrong yet logical. It was logical for the WPA to have written that letter. It wants political mileage for its African dominated agenda. But it is for us in society to condemn its evil contents and its publication.
I quote from this poisonous weed that if not extirpated by society, Guyana’s children will fall apart and the future recedes. “The intellectual authors of Boston’s execution had no interest in any law-related issue but a political interest in demonstrating to Africans that the PPP/C will seek to snuff out any potential spirit of resistance from our communities. Politically, Dartmouth is synonymous with Buxton, Linden and Georgetown in the African masses’ consciousness… there will be no paper trail as evidence to indict the killers and their intellectual authors in the Boston execution. The evidence is political.”
Surely, the press has a moral obligation to society. The police killed a citizen in Dartmouth. Violence should be a last resort by the police. When the police use excessive violence, a dead life cannot be brought back. Mr. Boston’s family has to be given justice if he was wrongfully shot. But what his death has to do with politics?
Government ministers went to Dartmouth to console Mr. Boston’s family. The family has not cited political factors. Mr. Boston had no political background. Dartmouth is a peaceful village that is not known by a majority of people in many of the Regions because it is a quiet place that makes no noise.
How can one make that dangerous and fantastic leap and link Dartmouth to Buxton and incriminate the leadership of the PPP? I have offered just a sample of the nasty incitement in that letter. Let me say with pellucid force, if Kaieteur News had published that letter, I would have told its editorial management of my angry disappointment. I have no say whatsoever in how Kaieteur News functions but if it had published that evil letter, I would have strongly expressed my feelings. No one has the right to shout fire in a crowded cinema. Humans have rights but those rights do not exist in an absolute mode. The press has a right to publish but it has societal responsibilities. Of course, some sections of civil society will remain silent. They will find their nasty, opportunistic voice when it suits them.

(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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