Dear Editor,
The tragic death of newspaper vendor Veronica Atherley after being shot in the Stabroek Market should not be taken lightly. If, as newspaper reports indicate, the shooter was firing after bandits in an always crowded market area, then his action was reckless beyond measure and is a representation of the disorder and serious decay in a badly wounded society. In the final analysis, as a legal source quoted in the Stabroek News report stated, “…it is of no material importance that the bullet which hit Atherley was not intended for her.” The fact is no amount of stolen money or item was worth the discharge of a bullet that ended Atherley’s life.
Furthermore, Atherley’s unnecessary death is not just an ordinary everyday event unconnected to the wider issues of criminality, the struggle for survival and the breakdown in law and order and civil society. It is part of a series of micro-events and tragedies that is a summation of contemporary Guyana.
Yours faithfully,
Nigel Westmaas
