There’s an online petition targeting Guyanese at home and abroad to urge President Bharatt Jagdeo to seek assistance from the United Nations (UN) in creating a commission to revamp the country’s justice and security system.
It is likely, however, to fall on deaf ears as the government’s spokesman has said it is not the administration’s intention to seek UN assistance in this regard.
Meanwhile, the petition, found at www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/878976004 has over 400 signatures and webmaster, Sharir Chan, in introducing the petition said, “It does not take a genius to see that political undercurrents help determine the crime situation in Guyana.”
Chan said further that the court system at best is hanging by a thread; the lock-ups are not sufficiently secured to keep the criminals; and the security services are ill trained and ill equipped to deal with the new generation of criminals with their AK-47s and other sub-machine guns.
In a nutshell, Chan said, the criminal justice system is in tatters and the government’s hand is tied, “and so it is unable to truly affect a turnaround.”
By signing the petition, Chan said that Guyanese are asking the government to request the UN Secretary General to assist in creating a commission for a 36-month period to help revamp the justice system in the country. The commission, the petition says, would have access to the courts, the police and the army to carry out its mandate.
This institution, the petition said, was not new to the UN and noted that recently the Guatemala government agreed to the creation of a UN commission to help rectify that country’s criminal justice system.
The petition, which Chan said is a signal that Guyanese, including the diaspora, are demanding their inalienable right to live in peace and security, is also calling on the opposition parties to join with the government in their endeavour at peace keeping.
However, when asked last week if the government would consider seeking UN intervention in assisting in the situation following the January 26 Lusignan massacre, in which 11 persons, including five children were brutally slaughtered, Head of the Presidential Secretariat and Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon said that it was not the government’s intention to ask for UN assistance.
He felt that the country’s legal and justice administration was competent enough, the security services were committed and resourced and the country would deal the problem. “We don’t need the UN to come and assist us in investigations and whatever,” he had said. Members of the opposition parties have signalled their interest in UN assistance.
Petitioner Paul Subryan of Guyana said that, the response to crime has been at best “mediocre”; and Fung Thomas of Canada said that it could no longer be ignored that Guyanese the world over are decent law-abiding citizens but the image portrayed from within Guyana is one of insecurity, a drug haven with race differences.
He said “the time has come for positive change and if the UN can help then we should implore them to do so.”
Rosaliene Bacchus of California said that in the past, the violence and mistrust among the people and their leaders led to mass migration in which she lost family and friends to migration before she too followed.
Because of the recent events, which could ignite another exodus, resulting in a crippled nation, she said there was no shame in seeking help from the UN, founded and maintained to assist nation states. “Failure to correct the forces that promote violence and impunity will lead to a failed State,” she said.
