• by Bert Wilkinson (georgetown)
• Wednesday, November 25, 2009
• Inter Press Service

When a psychotic senior superintendent of police and several subordinates sprayed three young criminal suspects with machine-gun and rifle fire for several minutes, killing all of them, early one morning in 2001, citizens in the small South American nation thought that the local police force had sunk to a new low.

To many, it appeared that a special squad of officers - dressed in frightening black uniforms with designer sunglasses - had been allowed to operate with impunity, knowing that they had the backing of the security ministry and the governing People's Progressive Party (PPP).

Today, human rights activists say little has changed. Last month, officers at a coastal police station reportedly poured a flammable liquid on the genitals of a 14-year-old boy and set them afire. The detectives were investigating the murder of a low-level governing party official.

The incident so outraged the nation of 730,000 people that even members of the private sector and other civil society groups that normally remain silent on issues that could hurt officialdom felt obliged to condemn the act, calling for swift action against the two.

The officers have since been charged with causing grievous bodily harm and are out on bail.

Opposition parties and rights groups, which had been hammering their heads against stonewalling authorities apparently willing to ignore credible complaints about excessive use of force, police brutality and acts of torture, say they now believe things can get no worse and fear a repeat if drastic measures aren't taken by authorities.

The incident came to light after a local newspaper published a leaked photo graphically showing the burnt genitals, huge water-filled welts, severe scarring running down the thighs and other injuries inflicted by the interrogating officers.

It also came just weeks after the British government canceled four million pounds sterling in grant aid to the police, saying authorities weren't serious about reform and modernisation and suggesting that the money would be better spent in other Caribbean trade bloc nations.

British officials have made no official comment on the startling incident of torture, but have been quietly suggesting in diplomatic circles that they now feel vindicated, as there is little political will to change the culture of abuse and excess in the force.

And as fate would have it, just as the teenager was leaving hospital last week, opposition parties in parliament made public a dossier on the crime and police situation in the country. It cited 449 killings in the past seven years, including of opposition activists, former agriculture minister Sash Sawh, two siblings and a security guard as well as dozens of young criminal suspects mowed down by in drive-by shootings while police were conveniently on the other side of town.

Most of the killings were unsolved and dozens have been blamed on a pro-government militia that stepped into a gangland crime wave in 2002-03 to help out government and unwilling police officers, as more than 20 of their colleagues had been killed by heavily armed gangsters.

Former National Security Minister Ronald Gajraj publicly admitted that the government had to look at 'ingenious means' to fight gangs by using well-known cocaine dealers and other underworld figures to head up private death squads that have made the pages of the dossier.

The U.S. and Canadian governments cancelled his travel visa and that of then Police Chief Floyd McDonald once former members bared the squad's secrets to the media.

'It is our contention that these events did not just happen and are best understood in the context of other criminal acts and human rights abuses perpetrated against citizens of Guyana,' says the summary of the dossier put together by the opposition parties.

The dossier has been widely distributed to western governments, including the Barack Obama administration in the U.S., and is to be sent to the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Trinidad this week, as well as to officials at the International Criminal Court of Justice (ICC) in the coming days.

The joint opposition wants an independent international inquiry into the period of the past seven years, blaming government for empowering police and drug dealers to do as they please and basically allowing them to silence and keep critics in their place.

Authorities have dismissed such charges as baseless. According to a government statement, the opposition 'have used the publication of the dossier to advance their grand design which is to sensationalize, confuse, and score partisan political points using the circumstances of the dead as their primary tool'.

But some western governments, such as Britain, say they are likely to find the compilation of killings, accompanied by a chronology of statements of condemnation by parties and right groups over the years, more than passing useful.

'I think we have to look at the contents and also see what further action is being taken here. It's not just a question for the international community, it's a question for Guyana and the institutions here and the people here,' said deputy British envoy to Guyana Simon Bond.

Another suspect in the murder investigation during which the teenager's genitals were set on fire also complained of severe beatings and burning to the tongue.

All this has come as the country awaits the report of an army investigation into the torture of two other criminal suspects by intelligence officers, as well as serving junior ranks of the military who were blamed for, and later found innocent of, stealing weapons from headquarters.

'We are seeing a worsening pattern of of violence, abuse and torture as lawyers at the bar. It is disgusting,' said former attorney general Bernard Do Santos and governing party legislator.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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