Dear Editor,
It has been years since I typed a letter to your newspapers. However, today I wish to share a story related to law in general which can be of some enlightenment to many of us, in the villages, who are not familiar with it. I must also mention that there is an urgent need for promulgation of the laws in the villages as too many of our young people are being affected, especially the young girls, by serious misdemeanours. Anyway, those might be told of later, for my purpose here is to convey a brief story about a police officer who was sent to arrest his brother.
My father was a man of love, pride and a believer in formal education even though he barely sat for several months in preparatory A, according to him, at Yupukari Anglican School, East Central Rupununi.
His last brother from his mother and his cousin, offsprings of two sisters, entered the police force while the other two brothers settled at Katoka Village, East Rupununi.
After his brother left for the coastland to be trained as a police officer, he did not see his brother for a long time. In the meanwhile he acquired personal necessary things over a period of time, such as an outboard engine, motorcycle, some cattle and horses.
My father’s wife was from Toka Village, North Rupununi, where they would visit during Christmas holidays. During one of those holidays, they decided to go further than Toka to Tiger Pond where one of my mother’s brothers resided. However, they could have only rode to the base of the Pakaraima mountain range where they left their transportation.
On their return, they found that their front wheel had been stolen. They quickly found out from the villagers who had stolen the wheel. The thief bartered the wheel for a cow which he took to Katoka.
One day, my father met his brother in uniform at his house at Katoka after returning from his farm. Innocently, my father, full of joy, welcomed his brother and offered him food as he used to do for his guests. In the midst of the feasting and excitement of his brother becoming a law enforcer, my father decided to ask his brother’s purpose of visit. His calm response, according to my father, was –
“I am here to arrest you because the owner of the cow that you brought home reported that you stole his cow”.
Long story short is that the man who stole my father’s motorcycle wheel also stole someone’s cow to do the barter to my father. Criminality on the mind of the naïve.
The law has no brother.
Yours faithfully,
Guy Marco
