There is lunacy abroad. Leaving aside for the time being the fact that it was a hard-working wife and mother who never did anyone harm that was murdered last Monday, just which criminal madman or band of madmen decided that gunning down Mrs Marcyn King would help the society – or even some group or groups within the society? Mrs King was not guilty of any crime and neither was she under suspicion for being involved in any crime. Certainly the shooting had the whiff of a revenge killing about it, since the only possible reason anyone can think of which could have caused Mrs King to become a target was the fact that she had a brother who headed the GPF’s most wanted list. But morality and the rule of law aside, if every honest citizen with a relative who had crossed the line were to become fair game, it would make targets of a huge percentage of the law-abiding population.
Is this killing evidence, as the PNCR suggested last week, that the shadowy death squads have been resurrected? And if so, just what is their agenda this time around, and who, precisely, is directing them? And if it is not the ‘phantom,’ then whose gun ended Mrs King’s life, and who is the murderer – or who hired the murderer – and why?
Guyanese now find themselves in a situation where no one is exactly certain of what is going on, although everyone has good reason to fear for the future. The gunmen who committed the Lusignan atrocity have never issued any ideological statement about the reasons for their actions; the political context of what they did has to be inferred from the fact that they went into an Indian village. And what credence are we to put on a phone call to the Kaieteur News, allegedly made by Mr Rondell Rawlins in which allusion was made to his missing girlfriend. Was this really the specific motive, and if it was, was it the only motive?
While Lusignan was simply straight killing for killing’s sake, Bartica has slightly different characteristics, since guns and money appear to have been the primary – or at least a major – objective, rather than simply murder as an end in itself. So was the same group of people responsible for the slaughter in both communities as President Jagdeo maintains, or are we looking at more than one gang, one of them connected to drugs? Even if there is more than one gang, are they co-ordinating with one another, and do they have the same ultimate aims, even if from time to time they undertake operations unrelated to those aims? And if one or both has ultimate objectives, exactly what form do these take? Is the thinking just of a straightforward Rwanda-style variety, or is there some other element? And who is the supreme commander? Is it Rondell Rawlins? Or is there some architect(s) of one or both of these crimes who does not go into the field? In short, just what are we facing here?
And now on top of that we have what appears to be a revenge killing, committed by who knows who under directions from who knows what quarter. Those older members of the society who can recall the 1960s, know only too well how easy it is to lose balance and skid down the slope into the pit. The problem is, the insights acquired by one generation do not necessarily cross the generational gap to become part of the communal memory of the next. And we are now more than one generation away from that first encounter with serious inter-racial violence in this country.
The gunmen of whatever affiliation in the society either have no understanding of how easy it is to achieve civil war, or they don’t care, or they believe they can bludgeon those they perceive to be their enemies into submission by force, or they want civil war in the mistaken belief that they will achieve their ends via that route. The reality is they can’t. Both major ethnic groups in this society are here to stay, but as history shows, working out the modus vivendi in our kind of circumstances will take time, sustained effort and inspired leadership. In fact, recognizing and seizing the historical moment is everything.
Whatever is going on with the gunmen, the important thing at this time is for all the parliamentary parties and leading civil society groups to fully occupy the political space in the society. That process has started with the stakeholders’ meetings – the government’s most inspired move – and the discussions on a national security plan. If there is a national security plan to which all parties agree, and which the administration is genuinely prepared to implement, then it will place extremist and/or criminal groups, whatever their aims and objectives, unambiguously outside the political ring.
However, the government has to be careful. The PNCR immediately condemned the Lusignan and Bartica killings, as indeed it should have done, and has participated in the stakeholder discussions. But some PPP members and the President in particular, have been less than careful in their statements, which by implication, at least, have suggested some kind of a nexus between the gunmen and the main opposition party. If the government behaves as if the party which represents the vast majority of African Guyanese in this country is beyond the pale, it will create the conditions not just for political hostility inimical to consensus on security, but it will also alienate African Guyanese and drive a further wedge between the ethnic groups. In other words, it will divide the political space where the matter of security is concerned, thereby assisting anyone who might have inter-ethnic strife in mind.
Then there is the matter of the government’s response to PNCR criticisms of how the security forces are discharging their functions. The government at present is not giving the impression that it wants to hold the police to higher standards than it did in the years which led up to the last crime crisis six years ago. We cannot afford a return to the approaches of 2002-03; what will defeat the gunmen is brainpower and intelligence (of the information variety), not thuggery of the ‘Black Clothes’ police kind. We have been down the road before of unprofessional police work and a reliance on illegal ‘phantom’ squads to perform the functions of the state, and just look where it has got us. The political directorate has to permit the police force to operate professionally; to do otherwise is to threaten the unified political space.
In fact, in a general sense, the government and the President need to have an altogether less strident tone in relation to their critics, as in the case of the Guyana Human Rights Association, whose recent statement resonated in the society, whatever the ruling party might have thought of it. If the government wants consensus, it has in addition to listen to reasoned positions from people whose support it now seeks; it cannot be a case of imposing its view on everyone else. That too is a failed strategy, and look where it has got us.
After the Lusignan killings, some of the relatives of the victims movingly said they were not looking for revenge; they wanted peace. No revenge was also a theme at the viewing ceremony for Mrs King yesterday. Let the government be inspired by all of these people. No sane citizen wants civil war. And as said above, while we can only speculate on the thinking of the killers of Lusignan, Bartica and Mrs King, they all can still be defeated by good police work on the part of officers who are properly trained and equipped, and by a united stand on the part of political parties, civil society and ordinary people against the lunacy and brutality they represent.
