Dear Editor,
The picture in the October 31 edition of Kaieteur News showing the 14-year-old boy tortured by the police was most outrageous, left nothing to the imagination, enraged the nation and supports fully the saying, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ It brought about the desired effect. It is for this reason I stand in support of publishing photographs of people who have fallen victim to gruesome acts. The picture, disturbing as it may be, is a result of the act in itself, although I do agree that there will be times when our decency and delicate senses or feelings would dictate exceptions to the rule.
Why should those who are committing all kinds of cruelties in the most brazen way without any kind of remorse, remain sheltered by not having the evidence of their sick minds exposed? Even if some may be incapable of guilt or shame, still let their actions – though painful to decent folks – be revealed for all to see what we have become.
In looking at this picture of torture, I couldn’t help asking myself, just what the heck is going on, and immediately once again remembered the words of Barrington Braithwaite: “The system had captured troubled, unbalanced personalities and created soulless mass murders out of them.”
And this we are witnessing. Torture by the state police is now a regular occurrence which appears to be part of standard operations. Just the other day we were almost petrified and lamenting what the Coast Guards had done to Ramdass. Now on the heels of it we are presented with yet another horrific act that has disturbed the conscience of the nation.
These complaints of torture are just too many and must be checked, since the abuses are not in any way bridging the wide bitter gap between the Joint Services and the people. But this pattern of beating/torturing has a double negative effect: it gradually transforms the executors into monsters and psychopaths, and demonizes the young victims. God knows, we have more that our fair share of man-child criminality. The Commissioner and the Home Affairs Minister must be mindful that public confidence in the Joint Services has been erased.
But I need to ask: are these tortures done because of love of the job with the sole intention of finding the real guilty ones, or is it that individuals are being paid outside of a salary just to get a confession? Whatever the case, why are the victims invariably poor working folks?
Yours faithfully,
Frank Fyffe