Dear Editor,
The Guyana Police Force is responding to an article published in the Kaieteur News on Saturday, September 27, 2008, under the caption ‘Lewis queries police interest in him.’
According to the article, in statements attributed to Mr Lincoln Lewis, General Secretary of the Caribbean Congress of Labour and the Guyana Trades Union Congress, he questioned the motive behind statements to the media that he had gone into hiding, and further charged the Acting Commissioner of Police to release all details of efforts made to contact him, including persons contacted prior to the statement, among other pronouncements.
The Guyana Police Force refuses to trade words with Mr Lewis over issues of his own security. Mr Lewis has a responsibility to report illegal/unlawful activity, whether against himself or otherwise, to the body lawfully established in law for the purpose of policing in Guyana.
It is not proper to make a report to a press conference without follow-up with the police. If Mr Lewis wishes to do otherwise and take the law and his security into his own hands, he may do so at his peril. Suffice it to say that he has a responsibility to act lawfully.
His assertion that the force are phantoms and the phantom is the force is ludicrous. The force wishes to challenge him to establish that view as true and correct.
In response to his public request, Inspectors L Lord and M Kingston, at the request of the Acting Commissioner of Police, did go to his home on Saturday, September 20, 2008, at 11:30h to ask him to contact the Acting Commissioner in connection with his public pronouncements of concern for his safety. A message was left with his neighbour.
Inspector Lord then proceeded to Mr Lewis’s office at the Critchlow Labour College Building on Woolford Avenue about 12:15h on Saturday, September 20, 2008, and met the security guard on duty. He said that no one was there and that he had not seen Mr Lewis for some time.
Similar efforts to contact Mark Benschop were fruitful and he met with the Acting Commissioner of Police on the said day, Saturday, September 20, 2008.
It is hoped that this clarifies the air on whatever sinister motives Mr Lewis has insinuated in his letter.
Yours faithfully,
Ivelaw Whittaker
Public Relations and Press Officer
Guyana Police Force
