Dear Editor,
As we enter into a new year, it is not unusual for us to make a resolution either to dispense with some bad old habit or to embark on a new more productive course of action. Sadly it is also not unusual to break said resolution within the first week.
It is thus with a sense of frustration that I noted the comments of our Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee. He was addressing the subject of torture. On the eve of this new year he opined that it is the media not the general public who are ‘pushing the issue just to sell newspapers’ (SN Jan 1, 2008). With all due respect to the honourable minister what planet does he live on? Even allowing for his proclivity for speaking rashly, this statement literally borders on the preposterous.
Mind you it would be easy to dismiss his remarks as being in this vein but it is a matter of profound national concern when we again appear to have in charge of the Home Affairs portfolio a minister displaying at best an ambiguous attitude towards the rule of law. Former Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj left under a heavy cloud of suspicion surrounding his alleged involvement with death squads.
We already have had the disgraceful Ganga Persaud and Kellawan Lall affairs. Indeed it was shocking to note that Ganga Persaud has now been appointed to the Judicial Service Commission, need I say more? One has to ask whether your average government minister has at best anything more than a fleeting acquaintance with the law; startling given the fact that they are all law makers.
More than ever before the Disciplined Services need to be seen to be upholding the very laws they purport to enforce. This is a fundamental prerequisite to regaining the trust and confidence of the general public which is necessary if criminal activity is to be curbed. On the question of torture, extra-judicial killings, police brutality, and denial of due process; the record of the police force under this government is woeful. Why doesn’t the minister show leadership and ensure that corrupt officers of any rank are dealt with? Otherwise, rightly or wrongly, the public will hold to the perception that the brutality and human rights abuses occur with the tacit approval of this government.
So Minister Rohee do you really think that in this climate people are going to express these concerns to you?
Yours faithfully,
Colin Bascom
JIG (UK)
The Campaign for Justice in Guyana
