Thursday, October 23, 2008, should be declared the darkest day in the history of our nation. This was the day when one of the most basic human rights of Guyanese, was dismissed by the Peoples Progressive Party/ Civic and the Guyana Government in Parliament. To use the highest decision-making forum, the Parlia-ment, to refer to the torture complaints of Guyanese as mere “roughing up” is a devastating blow to every Guyanese and a blatant attack on human rights.
Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud in describing the brutal treatment experienced by citizens diminished and made light of the allegations by stating that the men were merely exposed to some kind of “roughing up” by the disciplined forces. Others speaking on behalf of the government continued in the same vein, watering down the issue. Then, as if to make the government’s position clear on the subject of torture, President Jagdeo at a press briefing on November 1, 2008 told Guyanese that they must understand the context in which the torture allegations had been made and that he, Jagdeo, did not regard any of the reports of torture which were circulating as torture. It is clear from the President’s comments and the statements of top government functionaries that protecting human rights in Guyana is not a top priority of the PPP/C administration. For the President and his ministers to attempt to justify torture is an insult to the people of Guyana and to their intelligence. The President and government have concluded that the torture report is not a document that we should analyze for ourselves, so it has not been disclosed to the public despite several promises by the authorities. In fact, the President told us that when the report is made public, the names of officers implicated in the torture saga would be deleted in order to protect those officers. So we must ask ourselves whether this doctored report is what we deserve, and whether such a report can be deemed authentic.
Further, while I may understand the President’s move to protect the members of the Joint Services implicated in the report, I wish to ask who is looking out for the interest of those citizens and their families who have made the allegations against these men? Are the complainants not vulnerable in this highly criminalized and witch-hunting society in which we exist? Let us not forget George Bacchus and others, who were left without protection having made certain complaints.
The government said the complainants were “roughed up” not tortured, while the President said that the GDF men interrogated about the missing weapon were questioned aggressively. So the authorities are claiming that pepper spraying victims, beating them with metal pipes, placing a wet bag over their faces, giving them electric shocks, among other things, is not torture. It appears that Guyana may have a whole new meaning for torture, formulated by the government.
But may I remind President Jagdeo and his administration that the United Nations Convention which outlawed torture and which the PPP/C signed on to defined torture as; “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering inflicted by or at the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official or a public capacity.”
Based on this definition, is the administration telling Guyanese that the brutality meted out to these men, did not cause them pain or suffering? And since the government is bent on reducing the suffering to “roughing up,” it is reasonable to conclude that the government endorses torture.
Men have been strangled in prison, such as Cheddi Brijbilas in the New Amsterdam Prison, and have died after being scalded and beaten, such as Edwin Niles at the Georgetown Prison, and there are others too.
Today, with the government’s position on torture, people are encouraged to take matters into their own hands. We see villagers exacting vigilante style deaths, and beating convicts captured in their neighbourhoods. These incidents cannot be isolated from the over-riding lawlessness
which has engulfed the nation and to which the government unfortunately has contributed.
With the government’s stated position, we must now ask ourselves whether the disciplined forces are to be blamed solely in this torture saga or whether the administration can be held solely culpable.
I support the move to take the issue to an international human rights body.
Yours faithfully,
Lurlene Nestor
