Dear Editor,
Like US-based Guyanese political activist and commentator, Dr David Hinds, (`Since when did calling on people not to retaliate become incitement to violence?’ SN, March 15), I was nonplussed by the Guyana Police Force’s letter under the hands of its PRO, Ivelaw Whittaker, urging that Dr Hinds cease and desist from using his call for no violent retaliation to Courtney Crum-Ewing’s death to actually incite violence. Unless the police (or their political bosses) believed Dr Hinds was engaging in reverse psychology, the police’s reaction had to be among the oddest interpretation in the world of basic commonsense.
Dr Hinds actually wrote, “Let us not be drawn into any form of tit for tat. Let us instead use Courtney’s body as a guiding compass to the ballot boxes on May 11. That is what the brother died on the frontline urging us to do. Let us raise Black dignity to its highest peak and show the world that blood shedding in the quest for political power is not part of our wor[l]d view.” Shortly after that call, the opposition alliance put out its own statement, which basically said, “To the citizens of Guyana, we appeal for you to be both resolute and reasoned in your condemnation of the impunity with which human rights abuses are carried and condoned under the PPP. Resist this dastardly and cowardly act of provocation. APNU+AFC appeals for calm in this trying time.”
At 11.03 pm or under three hours after the execution, Demerarawaves carried a news story, ‘Home Ministry orders thorough probe into Crum-Ewing’s execution; speculates political motive,’ Hello? The Home Affairs Ministry, which is responsible for the police force, was the first to officially and publicly speculate that the execution may be politically motivated! More than that, the ministry further stated, “Though it is early yet to draw any specific conclusion or motive in connection with the perpetration of this dastardly act, the Ministry of Home Affairs wishes to alert the general public to be vigilant in respect of any act of violence provoked or unprovoked, that might be possibly initiated by those who may have a political agenda.” Now, in what way was Dr Hinds’ statement essentially dissimilar from that of the opposition alliance or the Home Affairs Ministry? Did the police (namely, Crime Chief Leslie James) contact the Home Affairs Ministry and the opposition alliance? Or is the PPP the lone arbiter of what constitutes inciting to violence?
Permit me, Editor, to divert momentarily and note that I recall in March 2008, former army officer, Oliver Hinckson, was arrested and charged with sedition after he appeared at a public meeting hosted by the Georgetown mayor and offered himself as a mediator between armed gangs in Buxton and the government. Sedition is the same as inciting to public violence, so who determined he was guilty of the act? That he was freed one year later after being incarcerated for months proved his accusers wrong. When another army officer, David Clarke, was tried in the US on drug trafficking charges but received asylum in 2010, former president Bharrat Jagdeo described Clarke as a ‘criminal’ who actually worked with the criminal gangs in Buxton (‘I know what I know’ …Jagdeo says Clarke’s light sentence changes nothing,’ SN, January 2, 2010), but couldn’t his remarks possibly have resulted in violent reactions against members of the army? Additionally, when Mr Jagdeo claimed he had a videotape (which he promised to release but never did) about the collusion of PNC executives and criminal gangs in Buxton, couldn’t his remarks have easily resulted in violent reactions against PNC executive members?
Getting back to the original point: the day after the Home Affairs Ministry’s statement, HPS, Dr Roger Luncheon, said that, like the rest of the media, he, too, was confused over the Home Affairs Ministry’s statement, which read in part, “The Ministry notes the deep coincidence between the fatal shooting incident and the earlier swearing in of the new Commissioner of Police.” According to inewsguyana online news site, Dr Luncheon specifically noted he would “have some difficulties recognizing what linkage could exist” between these two incidents.
Now that the police have gone public with clarifying their contact with Dr Hinds, enquiring minds want to know why the police don’t have their PRO tell the nation whether they contacted the person or persons identified by name by Crum-Ewing to the police as making threats on his life. Ten weeks after he said he made a police report about a named mid-level government functionary threatening his life, Crum-Ewing was murdered, so why neither the government nor the police have seen it fit to comment on that specific threat? Editor, as the nation tries to make sense of and the police presumably try to put the pieces of this high-profile jig-saw murder together, we have to constantly keep in mind the swift response by the police to the murder, which had many scratching their heads trying to figure out how the police got there so quickly. Guyanese are well aware, after many years, that the police normally are slow to respond to any shooting situation, so what exactly prompted this rapid response?
Add to that, the fact that a mere couple of hours after the execution, the Ministry of Home Affairs put out a statement speculating about a political motive and an apparent nexus between it and the confirmation of Seelall Persaud as top cop a few hours earlier, and we can see why this case has taken people’s curiosity to a whole new level.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
