Dear Editor,
Much continues to be said of the Joint Services’ killing of Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins and Jermaine ‘Skinny’ Charles, but if the people of Guyana are to believe every word the government and police said about these two men’s past criminal lifestyle, then no one should be bothered by the manner in which they met their death. They who live by the sword die by the sword.
But up to now, the people know only what the government and police reported; there has been no independent investigation to verify what was reported. This is dangerous because without independent verification of what the authorities say, it sets a precedent since anyone can be labelled negatively by the authorities. Besides the lack of independent investigations into what the authorities say, they also have a major credibility crisis of their own because they, too, are corrupted by various categories of criminal elements and, as such, have zero credibility due to a lack of transparency.
The authorities want the people to take them seriously when dealing with criminals, but between the time Skinny and Fineman first made news as dangerous criminals, how many major arrests and trials of corrupt government officials were done? How many major drug busts and trials were there? How many major arrests and trials for money launderers and tax evaders running businesses in Guyana took place? And these types of criminals are flourishing freely right now. There is no known police investigation taking place. The President did one polygraph testing of CANU officers and fired nine. That’s the end of that.
Not that people can compare murderers with thieves, but in a country that is supposed to subscribe to the concept of justice, government comes across as discriminating when it fails to apply the law even-handedly against all criminal elements, regardless of the types of crimes being committed. True justice demands that all types of crimes be dealt with in a manner that can inspire public confidence in the justice system. So when the President said he’d rather answer to human rights organizations about the shooting deaths of alleged criminals than face relatives of police and army officers killed in the line of duty, he skipped the important role of justice that demands that all criminal suspects be dealt with according to law. The law is more than just about killing armed criminal suspects. Killing armed suspects in a shootout is understandable, but where is the understanding that allows other types of criminals to turn up their noses at the law? There is no justice when one set of criminals gets punished and another set gets to prosper.
The authorities should seek to know the root causes of various kinds of criminal behaviours, but especially of the corrupt and gun-toting types that are prevalent in Guyana. What makes a person take a government job pushing a pen or answering a phone, knowing loopholes exist in the system for self-aggrandisement? What makes a person launder ill-gotten gains into legal businesses if s/he is not comfortable that government views her/him as a new breed of Guyanese entrepreneur? What makes a person, who can’t get a job that allows for personal aggrandisement or laundering money, take a gun and kill another in the process of a robbery? Besides opportunity, they are either simply needy or plain greedy! But in the end, one type gets punished and the other type gets to prosper. There can be no justification for any type of criminal activity by people, no matter how much they explain away the temptation or the cause, but there can also be no justification for the authorities discriminating in the application of the law against criminals of all stripes and spots.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
