Dear Editor,
In a letter titled ‘Guyanese need to take back their country’ Mark Benschop narrates the problems confronting African-Guyanese and he is right in some regards, but he also casts blame recklessly and without a frank examination of facts (SN, June 15). Mr Benschop is right with respect to the PPP regime’s silence regarding the extra-judicial killings. The PPP should have called an inquiry. This would have revealed the tangled web of drug kingpins and other criminals masquerading as freedom fighters and everyone else battling for various stakes and avenues of aggrandisement with innocents losing their lives along the way. But there are other truths in these extra-judicial killings. The first is that mostly African-Guyanese were killed by African-Guyanese criminals many of whom were paid by Indian-Guyanese criminal overlords such as Roger Khan along with some African-Guyanese criminal overlords. The rule of law was effectively suspended by criminals like Roger Khan, who funded this debacle.
The issue of police abuse and torture is not as simplistic as completely blaming the government. It is a combination of government failure plus personal shortcomings colliding to form deadly consequences. Government is to be blamed for failing to establish a proper system of rights, freedoms, due process, and an effective, trained and disciplined law-enforcement branch. Problems of poor or incomplete lack of training and supervision, internal discipline and poor equipment afflict the police force. Further, the legitimacy of the government’s statements on crime is shot due to its intransigence on the drug problem and because it stood idly by as a drug kingpin now in jail in the USA performed so-called policing duties with equipment and weaponry the police could only dream of possessing. That was an insult of the highest order. That insult is likely to continue with this new intelligence agency the government is creating which is likely to be stocked with handpicked pro-government individuals. On the personal level, the systemic problems coupled with a high degree of functional illiteracy and other personal problems mean policemen will take liberties. Therefore, when the systemic and the personal deficiencies collide we have a dangerous situation.
While there is overarching blame on the government, it cannot be blamed for every fiendish act of every policeman who steps out of the parameters of even substandard training. Officers from the same division committed both the Thomas and Kelvin Fraser actions. Divisional Commander, Ms Paulette Morrison, was removed following the Thomas case and yet we have the Kelvin Fraser incident. In addition to casting blame on the government’s failure the analysis must be case by case too.
Mr Benschop is completely right on the atmosphere of fear created against those speaking out. The culture of respect has declined with the rising tide of criminality.
I agree with Mr Benschop’s rant about the “ugly degeneracy” consuming the nation but this is not only a problem for African-Guyanese as Mr Benschop wants to remind us. It is a problem for Indian-Guyanese too. It is a problem for Chinese, Amerindian, Caucasian, Portuguese and Mixed Race Guyanese too. They have to take back their country too. They witness the degeneracy too and many within their hearts are paining, despite the fact that for some of them, their government is in power.
They suffer losses too. Some Indian-Guyanese are deemed betrayers for speaking out against the PPP. They have faeces thrown in their faces.
They are killed too as the cocaine trade blooms and kingpins gain guns, and armed men go on killing sprees while the government fiddles. This raging crime descending upon their homes and lives stems primarily from their government’s indifference to drug-trafficking and arms smuggling. As more guns enter the nation more criminals get them and more decide to enter the world of crime to use them. When kingpins freely display ill-gotten wealth it is a demonstration that crime pays so others embark on the same course.
So this is not only about one particular group but every Guyanese who has suffered. That said, I cannot say I expect anything different from certain individuals. Why is it that those who return from the exile of the diaspora and who populate the political and popular landscape distort and harm more than they serve?
Yours faithfully,
Michael Maxwell
