The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) yesterday conducted training for members of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and the Guyana Prison Service on human rights.
A release from the US Embassy said that training focused on the Department of State Leahy Law, which prohibits State assistance to foreign security forces if there is credible information that a security force unit has committed a gross violation of human rights (GVHR), to include extrajudicial killings, torture, forced disappearance, or rape under the color of law.
The local police force has come under scrutiny for years now over extrajudicial killings and other gross violations including a case of rape within a police station. The force is currently facing serious questions over the fatal shooting by one of its members of Dartmouth businessman Orin Boston in his bed on September 15 last year. Questions have also been raised about rights violations in the prisons.
The release said that the training reviewed definitions of GVHR types, the consequences of committing GVHRs, and the pathways to “remediating” units whose members have committed these acts so they may once again receive assistance.
Through the United States’ Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI), the release said that the U.S. Embassy has facilitated the training of 889 police officers in various law enforcement areas, including major case management, forensic video analysis, narcotics probes, and intelligence gathering, and is poised to facili-tate more than a dozen training opportunities in 2022.
“This most recent training is an example of the U.S. government’s commitment to working with Guyanese security forces in promoting respect and protection of human rights in policing”, the release added.
