The Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners’ Association (GGDMA) yesterday condemned the actions of the police who brutally assaulted persons, including a woman and her child, on a trail at Marudi, in Region Nine, saying that the actions were “excessive” and “unnecessary.”
In a statement issued, the GGDMA said the “mistreatment” of miners and fellow citizens by a few members of the police force “cannot be condoned, regardless of the circumstances….”
The statement came in wake of the growing outrage stirred up by a YouTube video, titled ‘Police brutality in Marudi Mountains,’ which shows a group of policemen and Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) mines officers standing around as one rank beat men who were trying to protect a woman and her child. The child was lying on top of his mother, who was on the ground as the men used their bodies in an attempt to protect them from the blows. The policeman used a stick to inflict the blows. There were other policemen around with guns.
“The Association is of the opinion that whilst the miners at Marudi Mountain (Region 9) were carrying out illegal mining activities, the brutal treatment by some members of the police team, and non support by the others, to protect the miners, reflect disrespect for the rights and protection of Guyanese Citizens,” the GGDMA statement added.
Verona Prince, the woman who was beaten, told Stabroek News on Tuesday that a statement was still to be taken from her about the brutal assault.
However, last evening a member of her family informed that police summoned them to the Lethem Police Station and Prince’s husband, Michael, and their 21-year-old son, Lorenzo, gave statements about the assault.
But Prince herself was not present since she and her 10-year-old son, Ronaldo, travelled across the border to Brazil to seek medical treatment for the lad, who is a Brazilian national. She had bemoaned the slothfulness of the police in getting a statement from her, revealing that police at Aishalton and Lethem did not want to take a statement from her as city-based investigators were expected to travel to the area to conduct a probe.
Acting Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell had told Stabroek News on Sunday that he had asked the police commander in the area for a full report and police investigators have been dispatched to the area to conduct a probe into the incident.
A member of Prince’s family, who was beaten, said that he did not believe that anything would come out of the investigation. “The police is always right. We know that. So, nothing will come out of it. The most you will get is a big one coming out and saying, ‘We are sorry’ and that will be it… I wonder now why we should stress out and give this report or that when nothing will happen anyway,” the man said.
Continuous efforts to contact Brumell for an update on the probe remained futile yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Alliance for Change has also voiced its concern over the beatings. At a press briefing yesterday, AFC Chairman Nigel Hughes said, “…no citizen, irrespective of their heritage, should be subject to that level of brutality by any law enforcement agency.”
He added, “I would have thought that after Linden, Agricola, the fish shop, that the whole idea of beating citizens in that manner would have been abhorrent to the police and it must have been very been obvious to this police officer that he was being recorded and he was not remotely concerned. That displays a kind of arrogance and disregard for the primacy of the integrity of the citizens … it’s disturbing, very disturbing. I think ultimately the lesson here
}is that the Guyana Police Force is unable to learn from its transgressions of the past… they are not going to change, irrespective of what the commissioner says…” he said.
Hughes pointed out that what his party also finds alarming is that some of the persons were who the GGMC claims to be illegally operating in the area were working there for many years and paid royalties to the agency. “I find it interesting that GGMC would accept, from persons they aided and abetted, royalties,” he said.
A GGMC official told this newspaper that members of that body would be undertaking an investigation of the events to determine the role of its officers in the matter. However, the source stressed that arresting of persons was not a part of its members’ job descriptions. “The GGMC don’t hold and move nobody. We don’t arrest persons and our people know this that’s why we take in the police with us,” the official said.
The official also stated that it is unclear why the GGMC personnel present at the beatings did not intervene. “We don’t know why they didn’t say something. Only them can tell you that. I was not there,” the official added.
The Ministry of Natural Resources has said that under ‘Operation El Dorado,’ the GGMC has been engaging in activities in the various mining districts to improve monitoring, compliance and enforcement and as such, the Guyana Police Force, in keeping with standard operating procedure, would accompany the GGMC to provide security and enforcement support.
Stabroek News was told that the GGMC officials and the police were on a road leading into the Marudi Mountain Area to do a follow-up visit on reported illegal mining at the site of the Romanex Guyana Exploration Ltd concession when they encountered persons on the trail. Romanex had notified the agency of the presence of illegal miners and acting on this tip, the officials went into the area.
Prince, however, said the assault occurred as they were returning to take her sick 10-year-old son to the hospital as he had showed symptoms of having malaria. But they waited on the trail as her husband heard that the police and the GGMC were returning to demolish camps and seize their mining equipment and they decided to record it to ensure they could reclaim their property.
Prince said her sick son was feeling cold and she told him to sit in the middle of the trail as that was the place where the sunlight was intense. She said that they spread banana leaves and the child lay on it and went to sleep.
She added that she lay with her son and was massaging him to make him warm when the police and GGMC arrived. “They came up and start cussing up ain’t ask anything, just like ‘Get out the #@&* road,” she recalled.
Prince added that she remained on the trail staring at them as she could not believe their behaviour. At that point, she resolved not to move as the police had no respect and that was when the blows began. “They start kicking and pulling, so my sons and husband run to cover me. But, next thing I know, is blows with a stick and my boys begging for them to stop… they continued and only stopped when my son screamed out from below that his foot was broken,” she said.
