Four days ago former President David Granger and Parliamentary Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon went to West Berbice and spoke to the families of the Henry cousins who were brutally murdered on Sunday. They made their comments in the context of the protests in Regions Five and Six which broke out in the wake of the killing of the two teenagers. Subsequent to that the protests turned increasingly violent, with roads blocked, vehicles torched, the contents of rice trucks tipped on the road, residents beaten and chopped, property destroyed and the seventeen-year-old grandson of three of the suspects held by police murdered.
The two former army officers appeared quite unmoved by the possibility that the protest action had the potential to lead down a dangerous path; quite the contrary in fact. “What you all are doing here is the correct response to a crime and the government must protect all citizens, whoever they are, wherever they are, day and night, and it is not happening …” former President David Granger was quoted as saying. He then went on ominously to tell his listeners that “we have to establish some self defence society … because unless we protect ourselves nobody is going to protect us.”
And in case anyone hoped that Mr Harmon was about to reveal a previously undetected capacity for prudence, they were soon to be disabused of the expectation. “…I ask of you to remain vigilant. There are some things we have to do as a community, we have to work to keep our community safe,” he said. He went on to treat residents and by extension the public to one of his famous contradictions. On the one hand he called on the police to do their job and asked that they be allowed to do this − although he also said he supported the protests; and on the other he insisted that an independent investigation was needed to ensure that justice was done.
The investigative arm of the Police Force, he alleged, had been infiltrated by “known thugs”, which was why an independent investigation and forensic work was necessary. “So we have to be vigilant, but allow the police to do their work,” he concluded. Perhaps some of those who heard about what he had said paid attention to only one part of his pronouncement and not the other, because they made it their business to prevent the police from pursuing their investigations at one point, never mind that as things stand they have detained seven persons.
The average citizen must be wondering what on earth a ‘self-defence society’ is. Is it a parallel unofficial police force? Is it a series of local vigilante groups? And if it is a coherent unofficial policing body, to whom will it be responsible? The implication is that it would be for the ‘protection’ of an ethnic/political group, which aside from the fact that it would be unlawful, would fundamentally undermine the structure and institutions of the state. If Messrs Granger and Harmon genuinely want to move us in that direction, then we are no longer talking of a commitment to a coherent state.
As for Mr Harmon’s “known thugs” in the police, they had five years in office to confront any such problem, while the present government has occupied the seat of power for a mere matter of weeks. In any case, is the Parliamentary Leader of the Opposition suggesting that those in the upper hierarchy of the force with responsibility for the conduct of the investigation are “thugs”? It is true that Mr Wendell Blanhum, the GPF’s most successful Crime Chief in recent years, is seemingly not popular with the unforgiving Mr Granger, who had him transferred after a commission of inquiry found he had not properly investigated a threat against the former President’s life, although citizens might be a little surprised if it was he who was meant. It must be said that unlike Mr Granger and his immediate circle, the wider public didn’t take the threat seriously, any more than did one or two other senior members of the force.
Be that as it may, it was a senior official of the traditional PNCR who came to Hopetown and showed how it should be done. PNCR Chair Volda Lawrence adverted to the barbaric nature of the boys’ killings which had rightly led to calls for the authorities to act, but asked that party supporters who might be involved in violent actions to desist from these. “What I have seen I cannot as a leader condone,” she said; “We are hurting each other as a people, we are hurting each other as neighbours and friends and we are turning on each other as though we don’t know each other…”
She also made reference to the apparent reprisal killing of 17-year-old Haresh Singh. Offering her condolences to the family, she said: “We’re not a people who kill our children, we’re not a people who maim each other, we’re not barbarians, we’re Guyanese.” While calling on PNCR supporters to refrain from violence, she also said President Irfaan Ali should call on his party supporters to “pull back”. Finally, she said that the violence would not solve our problems, they would only get worse. It was a demonstration to those leaders who had preceded her into the region as to how these difficult situations should be approached.
No one knows exactly except the perpetrators the immediate reason for the killing of Isaiah and Joel Henry on Sunday and whether it was connected to their coconut gathering activities. However, the gruesome nature of the injuries inflicted on the youngsters gave rise to the suspicion that there was an underlying motive that was racist in character, if it was not in fact the primary motivation. Primary or secondary, in the context of the fraught race relations engendered by the actions of the APNU+AFC government over the last six months in particular, the murders acted like a spark in a tinder box. It may be too that there are local tensions which people in Georgetown may know little about, or even circumstances related to some of the suspects which inflamed passions further.
Whatever the case, the last thing Messrs Granger and Harmon should have been doing is encouraging their supporters to keep up the protest in the terms in which they did, which was inevitably perceived as a coded permit for violent action. They have not condemned that action, neither have they encouraged their constituents to cease their riotous behaviour. As it is they open themselves to some serious allegations, not the least of which is that they are less interested in justice for the Henry boys, than in seizing the opportunity to make this country under a PPP/C administration ungovernable, and resuscitate their game plan which was cut off in August by the declaration of results from the March 2 election.
Their problem is, political novices that they are, it will probably not play out as they intend. Once started, racial confrontation is hard to control, let alone stop, and the last thing anybody wants – even the PNCR heartland – is a return to a kind of early1960s situation.
President Irfaan Ali and his government understand very well what is at issue, and for obvious reasons no one wants the crime solved more than they do. The head of state announced in an address to the nation that he is mobilising help from the Caribbean’s Regional Security System (RSS) as well as the UK government to boost the investigative capacity of the GPF in their probe into the Henry murders in addition to the “criminality which led to the disruption of lives along the Region Five corridor.” He went on to say that he wanted a holistic picture in relation to all the events surrounding what took place thereafter.
UK help in investigating the murders, he no doubt hopes, will neutralise Mr Harmon’s allegations against leaving the issue in the hands of the local police, at the same time making possible the upgrading of their capacity. As for the RSS, that is a Caricom organisation, and presumably he is expecting its involvement to restrict Mr Granger’s room for manoeuvre in terms of compromising security. And Caricom of course has a track record in relation to operations here. As for the holistic picture, no one needs to give the senior members of his government any insights in that department; they understand only too well already what is going on.
Lastly, the President has asked the AG to explore within the United Nations system all means available to hold to account those who spread race hatred and instigate racial strife. Whether there is or not, Guyana’s laws already cater for this, although they have been little used, including when senior members of his own party were culpable.
