I join Guyana’s former Attorney General, Bernard de Santos, Attorneys-at-Law Nigel Hughes, Raphael Trotman, Khemraj Ramjatan and 25 other prominent Attorneys, in strongly condemning the barbaric torture of the 14 year-old son of Ms Shirley Thomas, as well as the torture of Deonarine Rafick, by Guyana Police at the Force’s “D” Divisional headquarters at Leornora Station, over the alleged murder of ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) official, Ramnauth Bisram. When ever criminal investigations involve justice in the interest of the PPP, government agents are allowed to employ torture as a interrogation instrument.
Despite the diatribe of Police Commissioner, Henry Green, it is evident that the Police Force (GPF) indeed attempted to cover-up this barbaric act. Their investigation in how the media got word of this criminal ac and photographs of the tortured boy is repugnant. Commissioner Green and others may have committed obstruction of justice and malfeasance in office; crimes which warrant removal from office and prosecution.
The evidence shows that detectives from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) who had been tasked with investigating Bisram’s murder, doused the teenager’s genitals with a flammable liquid and lit him afire, after they failed to coerce him to give up presumed information on the murder. He sustained third degree burns around the genital area. This is a most inhumane and evil act that is deserving of capital sanction.
What is even more abhorrent and criminal, is that the depraved detectives held the teen in prison for four days and refused him access to a medical doctor, his parents and an attorney. He was only taken to a hospital on the fifth day, after the press photographer secretly gained access into the prison and photographed his injuries, and the matter was reported in the press and condemned by the Guyana Bar Association and a group of prominent lawyers.
The brutal torture of the 14 year-old exposes the active policy of torture that has been countenanced by President Bharrat Jagdeo and his government. Dozens of Guyanese citizens have been tortured for political reasons, with impunity in the past under President Jagdeo - acts which his government has implausibly denied and covered-up.
The Jagdeo government cannot disclaim torture is an official government instrument. Recently, Guyana’s Minister of Home Affairs and National Security, Clement Rohee and Minister of Agriculture, Robert Persaud, had the effrontery to argue in Parliament that several individuals who were tortured (for political reasons) with electric shock and then burnt, including three Guyana Defense Force (GDF) officers who were tortured in connection with missing GDF AK 47 rifles, were not tortured but that their treatment amounted to “roughing-up.”
This hogwash was later repeated by GDF Chief of Staff, Commodore Gary Best, while defending those criminal torture techniques. Commodore Best further demonsted contempt for the rule of law, by foolishly positing that the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Persons, “defines torture too broadly.” Best's contention is preposterous, repugnant to the constitution and international law and warrants stern rebuke.
Minister Rohee’s recent postulation on the torture of the 14 year-old is a phony, ostentatious, Rip Van Winkle-like argument of necessity, which has only been proffered because their agents were caught “red-handed.” Guyana’s Army and law enforcement officers are given carte blanche authority to torture certain citizens whenever it is politically expedient.
The lawlessness espoused by Ministers Rohee and Persaud, Commodore Best and others, have manifestly created an enabling criminal milieu in which the brutal torture of the 14 year-old and others, occur with impunity. Government officials who countenance and sustain such reckless and depraved disregard for human life - which constitute serious crimes against humanity, belong no where in public office, and must be held to account. Those who promote and commit acts of torture are indistinguishable. They must be removed from office, prosecuted and jailed, as prescribed by extant national and international law.
There are several Police and Army officers with ostensible political loyalties to the ruling party, who have been accused of barbaric acts of torture, and against whom compelling evidence has been provided and corroborated. Although their names known and have been published in Guyana and internationally, they are being protected by the PPP government. President Bharrat Jagdeo has a constitutional obligation to allow the course of justice to prevail against these individuals. They must be charged and brought to justice.
I read on Reuters news wire service that Minister of National Security, Clement Rohee has called for the interdiction of the Commanding Officer of the Force’s “D” Division, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Paulette Morrison. He argued that she must be removed from office for poor supervision of officers under her command. I know Ms Morrison; she is a woman of dignity and integrity who would never condone or cover-up criminal acts of torture. Ms. Morrison did not institute or countenance torture. The PPP government did.
Minister Rohee has therefore betrayed himself as a hypocrite who fails to realize that Ms Morrison is under the command of Police Commissioner Henry Green, over whom Rohee himself has ministerial jurisdiction. Therefore the buck stops at him. By judicious application of his logic, he and Commissioner Green must accept responsibility for abdicating their statutory and constitutional supervisory duties of the Police Force, and resign in disgrace.
It is a national ignominy that under Minister Rohee’s government and Police Commissioner Green, torture and other crimes against humanity have been institutionalized as law enforcement interrogation techniques; drug dealers operate above the law in full public view and collaborate with certain government and police officials, who allow their criminal enterprise to flourish, and officials who commit crimes retain the confidence of the President and are even promoted in some instances.
It is obvious that such corruption will not end until the United States Justice Department or prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC)) begin to nab these individuals. Suffice it to say, that I intend to contact US Attorney General, Eric Holder, about this and other matters.
The officers who tortured the 14 year-old child as well as the other individuals must be arrested and charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault, prosecuted and jailed. I call on Guyana’s Director of Public Prosecutions, Ms Shalimar Ali-Hack, to discard any possible fidelity to the politics, if and where it may exist, and honor her duty to the constitution and proffer indictments in these matters. Not only is her professional integrity at stake but so too is her personal credibility and her commitment to the rule of law and the course of justice.
It is also critical for the matter of torture in Guyana generally, to be publicized in the international community and for torture cases to be filed against the government and against Guyana Police Force and Army officers at the ICC, Inter-American Human Rights Commission and UN Committee against Torture.
Finally, President Bharrat Jagdeo must cease his silence on this matter. It is immoral. He must unconditionally condemn all acts of torture committed by Guyana’s Police and Army. There is no room for political or moral equivocations by Guyana’s Head of State on this serious criminal issue of torture.
