Dear Editor,
It was a dreadful topic and perhaps that is why my friend sought to ease the tension. “I pass wind stronger than their ‘full force of the law’ ”, he declared.
He was referring, of course, to the warning by Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee, that anyone caught helping escaped prisoners will feel the “full force of the law”.
My friend and I were discussing the shocking news reports that a “pleasant” nine-year-old girl was brutally raped, strangled and beaten to death at Parika beach. The perpetrators of such a crime are indeed less human and more beastly. The report was even more disturbing as in the same issue newspapers we learned that two of the recent prison escapees were convicted for the ruthless gang rape and murder of a 13-year-old Wakenaam schoolgirl a few years ago.
While I don’t support flogging in schools I would certainly endorse the use of the cat-o-nine tails to whip certain convicted criminals before sending them to prison.
The news story of the Parika child, Indy, had a few elements that are distinctly Guyanese. We are told that Indy – only nine years old – went to the riverside to bathe. Alone? Where were her parents?
We are told that the mother, Ramwattie Safeek, “had looked for her for a while” but then gave up. How long is “a while”? Did this “mother” ask anyone for help in conducting the search?
“Mommy” Ramwattie also told the press that her nine year old (still a baby to most parents) would frequently go to her grandmother’s home in Zeelugt “without telling her.”
Without telling her? A nine year old?
I once heard that it will take three generations before this country could return to civilized normalcy. At the rate we are going, I wouldn’t count on it.
Yours faithfully,
Justin de Freitas
