Guyana is a signatory to the UN Convention against Torture

Dear Editor,

Since 1987 when the UN Convention against Torture entered into force there has been an absolute, global ban on torture. This is accepted as a principle of customary international law, and because it is often difficult to distinguish between cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and torture, the UN Committee has regarded the prohibition of such treatment specified in Article 16 as similarly absolute and non-derogable. In the light of this, breaches of this nature have been regarded as very serious and in effect breaches of human rights.

The latter are commonly understood as inalienable, fundamental rights “to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being,” and which are “inherent in all human beings” regardless of their nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin or any other status. The government and its agents have an obligation to respect these rights which should not be taken away.

On October 27, 2009 14-year-old Twyon Thomas was seized by the Leonora police and interrogated about a murder, was tortured in the police station and his genitals set alight with the aid of an inflammable liquid. Subsequently, with his head covered he was seen by a physician . Those who took the pictures and distributed them probably did not realise the political overtones of the case. In the aftermath of the predictable outrage a case eventually filed against the police collapsed and the officer-in-charge of the station was transferred; the actual perpetrators remain on active duty without being disciplined. The recent promotion of the two officers in question sparked outrage.

In the light of all this, I read with complete disbelief the following statement carried in yesterday’s newspaper and attributed to Mr Omesh Satyanand, Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC): “We should not hold something against someone because they would have committed something wrong…even though you have served the time for it and I think the public should understand that. From our record, he has been an outstanding policeman for over two decades and we have taken that into consideration.”

Guyana signed and ratified the Convention in 1988. On more than one occasion the UN Committee against Torture and Amnesty International had critical statements against Guyana and the PPP government’s handling of reports and complaints. Notwithstand-ing this and Guyana’s obligations, a Chairman of the PSC Commis-sion has said, apparently in complete seriousness and sincerity, that a policeman should not be denied promotion just because he has done something wrong. The something wrong, torture, involving burning the genitals of a minor, is clearly seen as a simple or rountine misdemeanour. However, torture is not merely something wrong, nor is such action against a minor ordinary. In fact, these acts are close to murder and in any state practising the rule of law, not only would the officers in question have been dismissed apart from being the object of prosecution.

Such is the attitude of the Guyana authorities that the persons committing the act have been seen as meriting promotion in a state where the regime boasts to the world as having established democracy. Democracy without the rule of law has been obviously a clear and present danger for this minor. What is more, most observers are convinced that the Chairman is doubly foolish for suggesting that this officer was promoted in spite of his illegal action.

One Minister has in the past attracted opprobrium for having described torture as “roughing up” and complained about the public exaggerating its seriousness. Consequently, suspicion first fell on the Minister of Home Affairs as the source of the order for the promotion of these miscreants. Were he any better one could have called on him to have the Chairman and the Board on whose behalf the Chairman spoke to resign or be dismissed immediately. The same applies to the Commissioner if Police, Seelall Persaud whose brilliant idea it was to promote the other policeman involved in the torture case. That such a thing could have passed the PSC and the Minister merely goes to show that the persons selected by the PPP regime to manage, oversee and give guidance to the system are obviously too ignorant and dangerous to merit the positions they hold. This is the result of a PPP preference for appointing persons with no credible or relevant background of service to the community and the wider public, let alone public service. Clearly they should not be in any positions of responsibility as regards as sensitive a service as the Police Force.

This is yet another of the potentially explosive PPP scandals which cast shadows on Guyana where the gloomy mood of a neglected populace brings to mind some memorable lines from Hamlet. First those of Francisco, who laments that he “sick at heart” over Claudius’ (for Claudius read PPP) mismanagement of the body politic in Denmark (for Denmark read Guyana) and who astutely notes that the country is festering with moral and political corruption. It is a situation which drove Marcellus to utter one of the most recognizable lines of all of Shakespeare’s works: “Something is rotten in the state of [Guyana] …. “

Yours faithfully,
Carl B Greenidge