Minister of Home Affairs Mr Clement Rohee seems to have reached a fork in the road. One route leads forward to improved human security and public safety. The other leads backward to more extra-judicial killings and torture.
Speaking at the Guyana Police Force’s annual commemoration ceremony for policemen killed on duty, Mr Rohee announced that enforcement of the law was the task of the police force alone and renounced the employment of “private militias [and] phantom groups” as part of “an era that is left behind.” Indeed, those rogue groups contributed measurably to the troubles on the East Coast in 2002-2003. But where was Mr Rohee all the time?
The minister should be aware that the extraordinary surge in the murders of policemen occurred only after the police force’s Target Special Squad under the command of Senior Superintendent Stephen Merai killed Tshaka Blair in his home in Buxton village in April 2002. That killing triggered a cycle of retaliatory killings of and by the police that escalated into the gravest and goriest wave of criminal violence since independence. The Eve Leary monument was erected to honour the memory of the police victims of that period and other times.
Mr Rohee should be aware also that the US Department of State’s Country Report on Human Rights Practices, 2007 released four months ago still warned that, “The most significant reported abuses included potentially unlawful killings by police [and] mistreatment of suspects and detainees by the security forces.”
It is evident that much of the trouble was caused on the one hand by armed gangs who were killing, kidnapping and robbing and, on the other hand, by the police, who were involved in killing several so-called suspects. It is evident, also, that death squads were prowling the country, armed to the teeth with modern high-powered weapons and equipped with hi-tech computing and communication apparatus.
While it was obvious that the criminal violence had to be suppressed forcefully, it was equally clear many persons other than the wanted men were being slaughtered by non-police elements. This was the nightmare of malignancies that led to the unprecedented inquiry into allegations that Mr Rohee’s predecessor, Mr Ronald Gajraj, was involved in “promoting, directing or otherwise engaging in activities which have involved the extra-judicial killing of persons.”
The fact is that, during the troubles of 2002-03 alone, more police officers were killed than in the force’s entire existence up to that time or since then. Other persons were shot dead or disappeared without a trace. Will Mr Rohee ever investigate these atrocities?
Nothing is ever settled until it is settled right. If Mr Rohee is serious about treating those grisly days as “an era that is left behind,” words will not be enough. In an age of inquiries, inquests and investigations, Mr Rohee has shown no interest in pursuing and punishing the culprits, including those who still wear police uniforms.
Justice is more than delivering lofty homilies at wreath-laying ceremonies. He must take the high road to human security by first fulfilling his own explicit commitment to conduct an inquiry into the killing of Donna Herod in Buxton-Friendship, and of others like her who died during police operations. But this will require radical rethinking on his part.
To persuade the public that he is serious about pursuing a path that is different from the past, he will have to use his ministerial authority to investigate recent allegations of torture and unlawful killings in the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Prison Service, both of which are directly his responsibility. He will also have to reinforce the under-resourced Police Complaints Authority by recruiting a team of independent investigators to do its work without risibly relying on the police force to report on itself.
History will judge Mr Rohee’s tenure of office not by his speeches but by his success in reinforcing public safety and in rebuilding public trust in the damaged police force. He has come to a fork in the road. And, as the legendary Yogi Berra once remarked, “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
