Dear Editor,
I do not know whether to laugh, cry, or scream in embarrassment when the President and others seek to link the alleged recording of Kwame McCoy’s sexual solicitation of a child, with an alleged taped conversation of then Commissioner of Police Winston Felix. About the only thing these two issues have in common is the fact that they are both tape-recorded conversations. For people who are national leaders to display this level of obtuseness is a crying shame, and it sullies the reputation of a nation with a history of producing intellectual leaders with a high degree of comprehension in the mold of Forbes Burnham, Walter Rodney, Rupert Roopnaraine, and so on and so forth.
In the first of these situations, a tape of an alleged conversation between the then Commissioner of Police and an Attorney surfaced and created a furor in the country. Nothing in the conversation constituted a crime or an act of wrong-doing by either of the parties heard on the tape. Although the person responsible for the recording was known to all and sundry, he did not step forth and claim authorship of the recording. The President and the Government, rather than reacting like any other Government in a civilized democracy would have done, by expressing anger, indignation and dismay over someone penetrating the security of Law Enforcement, instead attacked the Commissioner of Police and went for his head. Today we are in uncomfortable awareness that the person responsible for such penetration was Roger Khan, who recently pled guilty in a US Court to being an International Narco Trafficker, and a co-conspirator in a crime to silence witnesses that the prosecution might produce at his trial. You guys getting this?m
Fast forward today and we have the recorded conversation, allegedly, between a Communications Officer in the Office of the President, and Commissioner on a commission dedicated to the interest of kids, and a 15 year old male youth. The context of the conversation is sexual in nature, and the adult voice is heard crying and wailing about unrequited love. The adult voice is heard rationalizing sexual connections between himself and the youth, by likening it to similar relations between a man and a woman. But there are other differences between the two issues that are even more evident.
Whereas in the case of the eavesdropping on the conversation of a sitting Chief of Police no one publicly stepped forward to claim credit for the intrusion, the person who recorded this latter conversation has owned up to doing it. He has provided a valid reason for doing it. The relatives of the child involved sought him out, requested his intervention because they had no confidence in the Police. This was not an ambiguous conversation between two adults. This was not the case of a drug trafficker and twice convicted felon tapping into the phone conversations of the Chief of Police. This was the recording of an adult and a minor, in which the adult was involved in what would be criminal sexual procurement in any other nation but Guyana.
There is evidence that the conversation was taking place between the boy and someone using a phone located at Office of the adult identified in the informal complaint. The minor has identified the adult by name, and admitted to meeting him on several occasions. The minor has a cell phone he says was procured for him by the adult. There is an abundance of disclosures that can be verified or disproved without even talking to the minor, to determine if there is prima facie evidence for an investigation. The only reason why the proceedings are not taking their logical course is because the adult involved is a member of the ruling party. And as we have learned, or have been forced into accepting over the past seventeen years, such persons are absolutely exempt from any form of criminal liability over any actions of theirs that occurs within the boundaries of Guyana. No our laws do not say that. The accumulated precedents that litter the landscape over the past 17 years or thereabouts, is what unambiguously demonstrate that.
Yours faithfully,
Robin Williams
