What is really going on in Camp Ayanganna nowadays? Is the Guyana Defence Force running some sort of military Gulag? For the second time in four months, credible complaints have been made to this newspaper by young men displaying evidence of physical abuse who alleged that they had been tortured by military officers.
These allegations coincide with the recent resuscitation of the surreptitious Military Criminal Investi-gation Department in Camp Ayanganna, the loss of another assault rifle from the defence force, the conduct of Operation Ferret in the Buxton-Friendship community and the installation of a new military high command by the Guyana Defence Board.
During the Guyana Police Force-Guyana Defence Force Operation Ferret in late September, Victor Jones and Patrick Sumner were arrested without warrant in the Buxton-Friendship community, detained for about three days and then released with their bodies badly blistered, burnt and bruised but without being charged. They alleged that they were tortured after being shuttled around the security circuit from the defence force’s Camp Ayanganna, to the police force’s Eve Leary and Brickdam, then to a defence force camp on the Linden-Soesdyke Highway and, finally, back to Eve Leary.
In the same operation in the same community the next month, Orlando Andrews called ‘Bullet’ and Noel James called ‘Baby’ were shot dead. A third man, David Leander, arrested later, was so badly beaten that he was unable to stand, walk or speak properly when he was taken into the magistrates’ court to answer charges brought against him.
Recently, three defence force soldiers – Michael Dunn, Sharth Robertson and Alvin Wilson – all complained to this newspaper that they too had been tortured by being beaten, cuffed, kicked, shocked struck with metal objects and more. Despite this cruel treatment, as with Jones and Sumner, they seem to have provided no useful information to their tormentors and were simply released with their wounds, but without explanation, much less redress.
Worse than the alleged abuse of human rights by military officers has been the perverse posture of the civil administration. Minister of Home Affairs Mr Clement Rohee’s astonishing remarks had to be heard to be believed. Suggesting that citizens were more concerned about “getting water, their own home and land and being able to buy food” than they were about the torture of Buxtonians, Mr Rohee absurdly asserted that some sections of the media were publicising the issue only in order to sell their newspapers!
Equally flippantly, Mr Rohee dismissed the complaint as a mere allegation saying daftly, “When you finish with one allegation there will be another. I am not expected in my life time at the ministry to dispense with all these allegations.” Who should?
No other minister should be more devoted to the protection of rights and liberties. But Mr Rohee is totally wrong and misses the point. Rights are based on the principle of equality of human beings – their equal right to life; equal freedom from arbitrary arrest; equal freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; equal freedom of expression, communication and association; and equality before the law. The Government of Guyana of which Mr Rohee is a part has an obligation, not an option, to protect human rights of all of its citizens – who include soldiers – regardless of their race, religion or place of residence.
President Bharrat Jagdeo, who is chairman of the Guyana Defence Board and who has ministerial responsibility for the defence force, is obliged to use his executive authority to ensure that the allegations of criminal behaviour by officers of the Military Criminal Investigation Department are fully investigated.
The Guyana Defence Force should be an emblem of this country’s values. So far, however, it has not published a report of an inquiry despite promises by Chief of Staff Commodore Gary Best. The injured men have not been compensated; the culprits responsible for their injuries have not been brought to justice, and there is no indication that the abuses will not recur.
Human rights apply to everyone, everywhere including Buxton Village, without distinction. There is no room for selectively excluding some human beings on the pretext of a passing situation or local circumstances. The administration must state unambiguously whether it fully accepts the principle of human rights or it doesn’t. There are no half measures.
