Justice must not be selective

May 23, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Peeping Tom…

Kaieteur News- An 11-year-old girl is dead. That is heartbreaking. That is a tragedy no parent should ever face. Her name must never be forgotten. But neither should the truth.

The child drowned. That is what the autopsy says. Drowning. Not strangulation. Not assault. Drowning. That is the cause of death. The investigations will have to establish, if it can, the manner of death.

The child went missing at the pool. The same pool where she was later found. A day after – 20 hours to be exact. Her body was found in the water. People are questioning whether she drowned in the pool. Or elsewhere. And was then dumped into the pool. But conclusions have to be backed by evidence. The police fumbled. They issued a statement that claimed video footage, about the time she went missing, showed she left the hotel in a car. Then they admitted that this was a mistake, presumably because someone input the wrong date in reviewing the camera footage. That is an aspect that needs clarification, and for those responsible to be held accountable.

When the child was found in the pool, it proved that the police’s original version was false. It proved that they got it wrong. Horribly wrong. And the public got enraged. But not all anger is justice. Then came the madness. Looting of the hotel. Arson at the hotel. Then of the private residence of the owner. The hotel is gutted to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.  All of this happened in broad daylight. Police stood and watched.  Cell phone cameras rolled. People carted off goods. Mattresses. Liquor. Chairs. Even a swivel chair. Nobody stopped them. Nobody arrested them. Perhaps, they couldn’t at the time. Perhaps the police feared a greater escalation if they did. Perhaps!

The hotel owner’s home was next. Burned. Flattened. A neighboring building was also destroyed. Where is the justice for the owners of these properties?

The girl’s death is a tragedy. But so is this. One family grieves a lost child. Another family and a neighbor watch as their investments and life’s work respectively go up in flames.

People are throwing aspersions based on mere suspicion. No evidence has yet been made public proving that the hotel was involved in the death of the child. No one has presented a shred of evidence. No witnesses. No confessions. Nothing. Just rage. Just suspicion.  Just gut feeling belief and speculation. Nothing. That is not justice. That is revenge. That is mob rule.

And what about the workers of the hotel? Dozens of them.  All now jobless. Their salaries gone. Their future uncertain. Who is speaking for them? Where are the cries for justice for them? Justice must not wear blinders. It must not bend to anger. It must not choose victims. It must serve all.

We cannot become a society where suspicion is a death sentence. We cannot let rage replace evidence. We cannot let the loudest voice decide guilt. The 11-year-old girl deserves justice. Yes. But so do the others. The hotel owner. His family. The neighbor whose house was destroyed. The workers now unemployed. They too are victims.

We must say this aloud. We must not whisper it. No one dares speak for the hotel. No one wants to seem insensitive. But silence is cowardice. Silence is injustice too. You do not right one wrong with another. You do not honour a dead child by burning a man’s properties. You do not find the truth by destroying livelihoods. That is not justice. It is mob rule. What of the looters of the hotel? The footage is there. Some faces are visible. Goods in hand.  Some with no masks. No shame. Yet no arrests. No charges. Is this how we do justice now? We must ask hard questions. Have we lost our moral compass?

A child is dead. It is tragic. But we cannot become savages. We cannot pretend the arson and looting were about justice. They were not. They were about rage. About criminality also that took advantage of the rage. And that rage found a target.  A man with a business. A family. Staff. Investments. He became the villain. Without evidence. Without trial. Is that justice? We must say this again and again: Justice is not selective. Justice is facts. Justice is process. Justice is balance. Those who burned the hotel must be found. Those who looted must be prosecuted.  We must mourn the girl. We must grieve. But we must also think. We must also be fair. Let us not bury reason with the child. Let us not burn our principles with the hotel. Justice must serve everyone. Or it serves no one at all.

(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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