Government on Thursday last brushed aside calls by a United Kingdom group for the abolition of the death penalty, stating that the law should be enforced as long as criminals are around.
Death Watch International earlier last week urged its supporters to write to Guyana and implore the authorities to get rid of the death penalty but Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, said capital punishment is in the country’s laws and the state is obligated to administer it. “The administration does not see as an imperative to have any national discourse on capital punishment,” Luncheon told the media at his post cabinet press briefing.
“Some states will hang and they will respond and some states will not hang and they will make comments,” Luncheon, who is also head of the country’s security intelligence committee, said. He said too that he is not totally convinced that crime will disappear in his lifetime and as such it will be necessary that capital punishment remains law.
While there are around 30 people on death row, Guyana has not enforced the death penalty since 1997. However, Luncheon reiterated that government is committed to carrying out capital punishment and has to find ways around the constitutional and other hurdles that have dogged the application of the law for almost a decade. He said the administration had to work aggressively to address the problems preventing those on death row being administered the death penalty.
Meanwhile, the group said, via its website, that it has its eyes on Guyana with a view to urging the government to abolish the death penalty.
The organisation, through its “Bin it!” campaign aims to add to international pressure on countries that retain the death penalty to consign it to the dustbin of history. “Every month we target a different country, our current focus is on Guyana in South America,” the website said. It also said Guyana is the only South American country that retains the death penalty.
