Main opposition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) last Friday wrote President Donald Ramotar seeking to have the Linden July 18 shooting inquiry widened to include later police incursions into communities where residents were shot and injured.
The request is based on the wishes of residents, Leader of the Opposition and APNU David Grange wrote in the letter to Ramotar, dated September 21, 2012 and copied to Leader of the Alliance for Change Khemraj Ramjattan.
The letter, which was seen by Stabroek News yesterday, proposes a raft of amendments to the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the Commission of Inquiry, in order to include the shooting and injuring of persons on August 10 and 12, 2012 at Linden, widening the focus of the inquiry from just the Wismar-Mackenzie Bridge to wider Linden communities.
“Notwithstanding the lateness of these recommendations, we make them in light of our direct interaction over the last few days with citizens of Linden in the course of gathering witness statements for the Inquiry. There is among them deep feeling that the events that flowed out of the July 18th shootings,” Granger said, specifically referring to police incursions into communities on August 10 and August 12 and the attendant shooting and injury of residents. “… [These] cannot be excluded from the matters to be inquired into by the Commission,” Granger said in the letter.
“Since, like your Excellency, we believe that the outcome of the inquiry should be embraced by all citizens of Linden and by all of Guyana, we urge that, even at this eleventh hour, you give serious considerations to the amendments we are proposing,” he added.
According to Granger, failure to include the events within the scope of the inquiry would render its findings inconclusive and not serve the main purpose for which the Commission has been constituted—bringing closure to a traumatic experience suffered by citizens and delivering justice and compensation to those who have suffered death, injury and loss.
The letter mistakenly had the dates as August 2 and 10, 2012. However, a senior member of APNU told Stabroek News that it was a mistake and the dates they were seeking to include were in fact August 10 and 12, 2012.
Meanwhile, APNU Member of Parliament Basil Williams, in an invited comment, told Stabroek News that the exclusion of the two dates was the result of an omission by all of the parties in the Tri-partite arrangement.
“None of the parties had addressed this,” he said. He added that this can be remedied by simply amending the TOR as gazetted.
The rules for the COI said that a deadline will be set for the submission of statements and this is to be publicised. The rules state also that Commissioners will not be bound to consider late statements.
“We expect to get an extension to take statements. [In Linden] people were annoyed when we told them that the COI is only [centred on] the events at the bridge on July 18,” Williams explained.
On the letter to the President, Williams hoped for a positive outcome. “We are hoping to have a meeting with the President,” he said. He added that the first sitting of the COI scheduled for tomorrow, is mainly for addressing housekeeping matters.
At a press conference last week, members of the APNU expressed disappointment with the TOR but were at a loss to fully explain how it was that they felt that way, given the fact that the party had a hand in crafting the TOR. At the same press conference, APNU said the TOR fell short of the expectations of the people of Linden.
President Ramotar on Friday expressed shock at APNU’s position and said it took him completely by surprise, since the crafting of the terms of reference was a joint effort.
The Terms of Reference say that the inquiry will examine, inter alia, whether the police deployed to the bridge committed the fatal shootings and, if so, who gave the order to fire and whether the police had justification for the use of lethal force at the scene.
The Commission will also look into the instructions given to the detachment as well any instructions that may have been given by Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee to the police force to maintain law and order in Linden immediately before, during and immediately after the events on July 18.
The rules state too that in view of the subject matter, all witnesses will be represented by counsel, but no one, except the Commissioners, has a right to cross-examine any witness. They state that cross-examination of witnesses will be allowed only to the extent that the Commissioners think it is helpful towards eliciting information on matters under investigation.
According to Rule 12, witnesses will be examined first by counsel for the Commission, cross-examined by counsel for any interested party and then re-examined if necessary. Commissioners may also ask questions of the witnesses, the rules state.
Witnesses have no right to silence, but a statutory exception against self-incrimination will apply, the rules state. However, since there is no provision which precludes the evidence being used in any future court proceedings, the Commissioners will inform all witnesses of this prior to the commencement of or during their testimony,
The commission is made up of Chairman and former Chief Justice of Jamaica Lensley Wolfe, Senior Counsel K D Knight, also of Jamaica, Senior Counsel Dana Seetahal of Trinidad and Tobago, Justice of Appeal Claudette Singh and former Chancellor Justice Cecil Kennard.. Wolfe had made it clear to reporters that the outcome of the COI would be based solely on the evidence provided.
