That it was the government that facilitated the change after years of pressure doesn’t redound much to its credit but rather exposes its nonchalant approach to respect for the rights of all Guyanese particularly those who have been held on the suspicion that they have committed a crime.
Indeed, when one considers that the present Minister of Home Affairs, Mr Clement Rohee himself pointed out on Friday that he was twice held in the lock-ups during the undemocratic era: 1968 and 1989 it is difficult to rationalize how his government could have for so long tolerated the sub-human conditions that prevailed for many of the 18 years that it has been in power and certainly the several years that he has been the Minister of Home Affairs. The only plausible explanation is that while detention at the lock-ups was a price PPP operatives were prepared to risk during the years of rigged elections, the party saw nothing wrong with extending that same discourtesy to those who fell afoul of its own rule. It says little for the credentials of an electoral democracy.
And when one considers the stark criticisms that had been levelled at the putrid lock-ups by the Guyana Human Rights Association and legal luminaries, the government’s lethargy in remedying the situation is baffling. Perhaps the most damning indictment of the lock-ups came in January 2002 when the Chairman of the Bar Council of England and Wales, Lord Daniel Brennan QC visited. He recommended that the facility be locked up and closed. Any probability of the government agreeing to this was derailed by the Camp Street jail-break that occurred months later and triggered the worst crime spree the country had ever witnessed.
Then, Brickdam became one of the choice locations for suspects in the crime orgy who were thought to be dangerous and then subjected to Dickensian conditions. Conditions continued to deteriorate at the lock-ups and it was perhaps the series of reports in the media giving detailed and graphic accounts by persons who were incarcerated there which finally embarrassed the government into action.
In the words of a push cart operator who had spent some time there “Three days after I come out I was still smelling dat place… is like I was breathing the stink smell all the time, I throw away all me clothes I had but I was still smelling. Dat place is not fit for human beings and it should be closed down, I thinking about all the people who in there and all a dem who will go, that place has to close down.”
He further said that while there were twenty cells in the facility no detainee stayed in them because they were all filled with faeces and urine since the toilets were not usable. “Everyone just stay outside of dem cells and when you want sleep you just lie down right deh on the concrete. No one ent want go in dem cells because dem more stink and nasty and even though dem have a boy cleaning every day he does just clean the front of dem cells…”, the cart operator added. This was just one of the many accounts and matters came to a head when the government was shamed at a gathering of regional police commissioners in Georgetown as Caricom Assistant Secretary-General Dr Edward Greene railed against the dehumanizing conditions under which detainees were kept and percipiently added that such conditions “epitomize the abuse of their human rights” which had “serious implications for the image of the police and the legitimacy of their role as one of the agencies of human and social development”.
His remarks also struck a lusty blow at the petulant attitudes of government officials who had dismissively enquired, when pressed on the conditions at Brickdam, whether the press expected five-star accommodations for prisoners. That attitude in itself betrayed the complete lack of respect by the government for fundamental human rights.
There is still a long way to go on the law enforcement front in relation to respect for human rights. While the physical facilities at Brickdam have been improved it is by no means guaranteed that this new dispensation will extend to the attitudes of the policemen and women in the treatment of detainees. The force continues to be in dire need of adherence to standards that eschew violence and inhuman treatment.
Certainly in relation to torture, the force is yet to convince the Guyanese public that it has learnt a salutary lesson from the horrendous treatment meted out to a teenage suspect at the Leonora police station whose genitals were set alight. It would be recalled that several years prior to this event, when he was braced on the question of torture, Minister Rohee would crudely retort that Guyanese were more interested in clearing their seasonal barrels than in pondering concerns about torture by the security services.
It is left to be seen whether the police and indeed, the entire joint services, have learnt seminal lessons about torture in recent years.
There are other areas where Minister Rohee can show good faith with respect to human rights norms. The Camp Street prison remains hellishly overcrowded leading to all sorts of dangers and inhumane conditions. This situation has existed for many of the 18 years of this government to varying degrees. Will Minister Rohee succeed in convincing his government to begin the process of relieving the burden on the Camp Street jail?
The Minister also has a serious task ahead of assuring the public that police are taking the epidemic of domestic violence seriously and are acting in a conscientious and determined manner in handling many of the complaints from mainly women that reach their stations. Too many women have been butchered by partners who were complained of without the police force taking the requisite actions.
The refurbishing of Brickdam is but a small step on the road that the Ministry has to travel in convincing the public that it fully subscribes to the fundamental human rights set out in the constitution and those it has committed to observing under the various UN human rights treaties.
