The AFC would not have supported Opposition Leader David Granger’s motion for a Commission of Inquiry into criminal violence in its current form and this is one possible reason why it was deferred, according to party leader Khemraj Ramjattan.
Without the support of the AFC, the motion would have suffered certain defeat as Granger’s A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) would not have had more votes that the government.
Granger’s motion, which had been slated for debate on January 10, seeks to have government appoint a Commission of Inquiry to probe criminal violence from 2004 to 2010, ranging from the killing of Minister Satyadeow Sawh to the massacres at Lusignan, Bartica and Lindo Creek in 2006. The motion was, however, deferred.
Ramjattan said the AFC wanted to make some amendments to the motion and was not inclined to support the motion without the changes.
“We wanted to add an amendment to include [the term] Truth and Reconciliation Commission and to have that body examine the criminal violence from a period way before 2004,” said Ramjattan in a comment to this newspaper last night. “We wanted to ensure that we bring out everything and not just [what occurred] since 2003 – 2004,” he said.
He cited the example of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to examine the atrocities of an apartheid-torn South Africa after the end of state-sanctioned segregation in that country.
“Granger’s motion [as it was] may not have enjoyed our support because
