Last week Commissioner of Police Leslie James told the media that Deputy Commissioner of Police Lyndon Alves had been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing. The investigation had been completed, he said, and the Police Force was currently dealing with some “administrative issues”. That is the “final position,” he added.
The allegations against the Crime Chief were not of a minor character. Furthermore, he is probably the highest ranking officer in modern times to have accusations of this kind against him enter the public domain. Earlier this year several policemen on condition of anonymity had told this newspaper stories of protection rackets, failing to prosecute certain persons accused of crimes, and murder involving a hit on a policeman, among other things.
The accounts related to Berbice, but the junior ranks who were alleged to have executed the corrupt operations were said to have done so on the instructions of a senior officer based in Georgetown, who also protected them. Subsequent to these reports appearing in the press, several police officers were transferred.
Eventually, after some delay, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan was moved to announce an investigation, in addition to which the senior officer at the heart of the corruption allegations was named. The problem is that the probe was put into the hands of the Force’s own Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), and that no independent investigation was commissioned. Three months ago Minister Ramjattan was on record as saying that he saw nothing wrong with the OPR conducting the probe. “I am very comfortable with the OPR,” he was quoted at that time as saying: “Who you want us to put? …We have to build institutions in Guyana to the extent of letting them get integrity and reputation and unless we start doing that, nothing will grow in Guyana.”
Well that is the greatest piece of arrant nonsense from someone in Mr Ramjattan’s position that ever there was. Does he really expect everyone to believe that an institution with no reputation in the society, which is not recognised as having any independence and whose members are tasked with inquiring into the transgressions of fellow officers will suddenly learn integrity by investigating serious corruption allegations against a man who is second in command to only the Commissioner himself?
When Stabroek News contacted him a few days ago about the report clearing the Crime Chief, the Minister who is overseas currently and had not seen it, was quite unrepentant about his earlier position on the OPR. “…The OPR can question him [Alves]… the police can investigate the police yes. The police can investigate judges, the police can investigate the president… why they can’t investigate policemen? I see nothing wrong,” Ramjattan said. He went on to comment, “And if he is now cleared by virtue of the investigation, so what you want? Only the Commissioner could investigate a Deputy Commissioner? I think it is totally illogical.”
Mr Ramjattan is being disingenuous. This is not analogous to the police investigating judges, say. This is a problem of the police investigating themselves, and the kind of social as well as other pressures to which they could be subject. The Police Force is a very hierarchical organisation, and it is almost inevitable that a junior officer would feel intimidated questioning a very senior one, even if the latter was as accommodating as he could be. Furthermore, the temptation might exist not to be as thorough in the inquiry as the allegations would demand, and perhaps even subliminally to lean towards conclusions the upper echelons of the Force thought appropriate.
As it is, the Commissioner was so sparing in the information he supplied to reporters that no one knows just how exhaustive or otherwise the probe was, although Minister Ramjattan did tell this newspaper that on his return he would make a report after he got hold of the findings. However, this should not have to await the return of the Minister; the Commissioner himself should have been far more forthcoming about the proceedings and the outcome of the investigation than he was. A bare statement clearing the Crime Chief will not resonate with the public as proof there was no substance to the allegations.
People will want to know who questioned Deputy Commissioner Alves, for example, or whether he was questioned at all. And if he was questioned, how thorough that questioning was in relation to specific assertions. The accusations were detailed in terms of time, place, circumstance and sequence of events, so exactly how did the officers of the OPR go around establishing that each and every one (and there were quite a few) was fabricated in part or whole, and that the Crime Chief had absolutely no connection with any of them?
Certainly, the original sources for the allegations were not at all surprised by what has transpired. One of them told this newspaper: “I think they should still do an independent investigation, yes, because from the statements I heard ranks give I can’t understand how they clear him. I think an independent investigation will clear up everything, but you think they will do that now?” He went on to add: “Me ain’t surprise. I know once they say OPR would a investigate, this would a happen.” Inevitably those who initially spoke out are afraid that efforts would be made to identify them, and it must be presumed that in addition there would be consequences for them.
The problem for both the Police Commissioner and the Public Security Minister is that in the eyes of the public corruption in the Guyana Police Force is systemic. Leaving aside for the moment the Commissioner’s mishandling of the investigation’s outcome by not making available the detailed findings, it has to be recognised that the perception of the citizenry is that any statement emerging from the Police Force in relation to its own corruption is suspect.
The upper echelons talk ad nauseam about building public confidence in the Force and establishing a relationship of trust with citizens so that they feel safe providing information which would help in solving crimes. After this, however, the public will think that the police are not serious, and that the GPF as an institution still lacks integrity – which is not the same thing as saying that every officer engages in misconduct; that is clearly not the case. However, violent crime is an ongoing issue in this society, and people need to have some confidence that the country’s major crime-fighting institution is both honest and effective.
If the senior hierarchy takes its mission seriously, therefore, and if it is genuine about reform, it has to be prepared to confront major allegations of corruption in a very open and rigorous way. If it doesn’t, it will simply be accused of organising cover-ups and functioning at an institutional level out of harmony with the law.
The problem for Deputy Commissioner Alves too is that perception is everything. He may be innocent as the OPR has apparently found, but that particular unit cannot clear his name, its conclusion notwithstanding. Only an independent investigation can accomplish that, because only the findings of a properly constituted non-police body would be trusted outside Eve Leary. For the sake of the future of the Police Force; for the sake of the Crime Chief; for the sake of society, Minister Ramjattan on his return needs to set up an independent investigation into the allegations from the ranks in Berbice.
