While the Joint Services have maintained a stony silence on the March allegations of torture, the memories are still fresh for a young Wakenaam resident.
Seventeen-year-old Ryan Gordon recalled the horrifying experience with Joint Services ranks in March this year as though it were yesterday.
The young man alleged that he was savagely beaten by the officers who went to the island on the morning of Sunday, March 1, in search of another relative.
Woman Colonel Windee Algernon of the GDF told this newspaper last week that the army had not received any information on the matter. She said an accusation was noticed in the print media about an operation conducted by the Joint Services on the island.
According to the young man of the village of Ridge, South Wakenaam, he was asleep that Sunday morning when he received a phone call on his mobile phone from the wife of an uncle. The young farmer said his uncle’s wife asked if he had any knowledge of her husband’s whereabouts and he answered in the negative. He said he later found out that his aunt was in the custody of the ranks and was in the ‘backdam’ at the time being held by the officers when she called his phone.
This was questioned by the family and other residents on Wednesday who asked why a female officer was not present during the woman’s brief detention in March. He said one of the men took the phone from his uncle’s wife and asked him about his uncle’s whereabouts, and when told that he did not have an answer for the question, the caller started using a series of expletives. Gordon said he promptly disconnected the call and returned upstairs to his bed; it was around 5.30 am.
Less than 30 minutes later, his ordeal began. A group of men, about 15 in number, showed up in front of his home, calling him out of the house. This prompted his stepmother to run upstairs in fear and his three stepsisters trembled on seeing the men with their long guns drawn. He said two of the ranks entered the house and dragged him down the stairs to the parapet in front of the house where the beating started. He said while hitting him about the body, also using their guns to do so, the men repeatedly asked him for his uncle, and he responded that the man lived about a mile away from his home, close to a koker.
This didn’t stop them from continuing to physically abuse him, sometimes hitting him behind his head and in his back with their rifles. He said the officers, some in plain clothes and others in “army clothes,” took him down the road close to his uncle’s residence, where they forced him to kneel on the sharp edges of bricks on the road while a few heavy pieces of wood were placed on his shoulders. He said the men persistently taunted him and made jokes as the beating continued. He was then ordered by the men to lie on his belly and “crawl like a snake” and if he didn’t reach a certain distance as they counted from one to ten, they would hit him behind his ear and other parts of his body with their guns.
Gordon said the ordeal went on for about three hours before the rain came to his rescue shortly before 9 am. He said the group split up and while a few of them returned to the koker, the direction from which they came, a few others took another young man into custody and headed in a northerly direction towards the central part of Wakenaam.
When this newspaper spoke to the teenager on Wednesday, he was about to head into his family’s farm where he works every day. He reasoned that the officers became angry when he disconnected the call but noted that at the time he didn’t know whom he was speaking to.
His stepmother explained, jokingly, that they were of the impression that his uncle’s wife had run off with another man and when she called Gordon that morning, he thought she was at the other man’s home. Gordon said that even if the caller had identified himself, he could not have told him where his uncle was since he only speaks to the uncle whenever he visits their home, which is not a frequent occurrence.
His stepmother told this newspaper that she was terrified during the entire episode. She said two of the ranks were nice to her and her daughters but a few others who “had dreadlocks” mercilessly assaulted her stepson that morning. The woman said they were a poor family and wondered how anyone could torture another human being in such manner. The woman said her stepson sustained severe injuries to his stomach and after visiting a doctor shortly after the incident, she had cause to take him a second time since he continued to experience pains about his body. She said the matter was reported to the police at Parika a few days after the incident but the family has not heard anything since from the authorities.
The family said they also heard of similar treatment meted out to another farmer, Mitchell Thomas, who had said he was placed to lie in an ants nest on a farm as the Joint Services ranks questioned him about the whereabouts of Gordon’s uncle that Sunday morning. They said Thomas lived on the neighbouring island of Leguan but was employed by a farmer on Wakenaam at the time as a labourer, and he would usually spend periods of two to three months on the farm before returning to his family on Leguan. Stabroek News understands that Thomas has since returned to his family as he fears for his life following his encounter with the Joint Services.
I recall this incident clearly especially the one that was put on the ant nests. That was curial to mankind. The matter was reported to Parika Police station what was the results of their investigation? Where are Mr Rohee and Mr Green on this matter?
Stabroek News please follow up on this matter this is cruelty to mankind especially when a statement coming from “Woman Colonel Windee Algernon of the GDF told this newspaper last week that the army had not received any information on the matter. She said an accusation was noticed in the print media about an operation conducted by the Joint Services on the island”.
What a redecklious statement, at least an attempt should be made to find out who were the Army Officers were involved in this matter.
Is this justice? I also recall that the Opposition Leader Robert Corbin wrote about this incident. I remember this incident like if it was yesterday.
This is how the Government treated their Citizen? No rights? No respect for the rule of law. Where is Rohee Minister of Home Affairs is this not a matter for the Police to follow up? Where Is the Commissioner of Police Henry Green on this matter? Gary Best? Better yet, the President who is the Commander and Chief I asked where the justice for these two young men?
SN my memerory is still intact wen burnam gds raid me house and put a bayonet on me chest in me bed, me bin a lil bai den.
and when you wake up what happem freespeech??
i was awake when they enter, i was frzen could not move.
THEY LOOKING FOR GUNS
That’s how it is in guyana, a culture of torturer in the armed force, and the sad thing about it no one can do anything about it, because the police and army are above the law.
That right!amen-ra.
Police men with dreadlock? I wonder if the police has again adopted the Roger Khan phantom style investigation
This sounds like a scene from one of those spaghetti westerns where a ruthless gang would beat innocent victims while cracking jokes all the time!
Disgraceful Brigadier best, you see the article in the media and you didnt launch your own investigation you are waiting for the teen to file a report? What nonsense is this? which planet are you people living on, brutopia?
hahahahahaha all i could do is laugh with disgust at the way
my country is running. to all them ppp supporters i hope
yal reading and understanding what yal govt. is encourageing
in guyana…. happy fathers day to all
God bless the gov’t for striking fear into into the hearts of drug dealers everywhere.Even if they didn’t find anything, at least those who were beaten will think twice about even getting into the drug business. All of the wakenam residents continue to support the gov’t because like North Korean, Iran China and Cuba they alone know what is beast for us in Guyana. They will continue to have our support at the next elections. In fact all citizens should probable get a regular beating from the security forces to keep them inline and the country will continue to rise to greater and greater heights. Oops, I just realised that when I wakeup ,I does talk and write stupidness.LOL!
paul my memory is still fresh , rememba how burnham gdf put a bayonet on me chest, i was in bed and me bin a lil bai den.
oops me na wake up just now, and e gat a lot a people dat e apen to.
well it was not korea, cuba china or iran it was guyana during burnam days.
good man
Paul its nice that at least some “sensible” people think that we should go forward and not be a backward nation,unlike some ( Freespeech) who think it happened to them and it is ok if it happens to someone else. Correct me if my interpretation is wrong.
Paul McAdam, LOL LOL LOL… watch out though, nuff people gon tek you seriously, believe you me bro, the way people’s mentalities are today is something else…
“This morning I woke up in a curfew, Oh God I was a prisoner too, could not recognise the faces standing over me, all dressed in uniforms of brutality” -Bob
Time for Guyanese to stand up and refuse to accept this kind of treatment. TORTURE IS NOT ACCEPTABLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES – not even on the guilty, let alone the innocent!
It seems Guyana has become a place where the innocent receive torture, and the guilty can get away scot-free with anything as long as they are “well connected” like the one who raped the sister who drank poison in another article today.
Why is there so much violence in my country?