The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has added its voice to the condemnation of the criminal acts that were committed last Tuesday when persons took advantage of a protest over a police killing to rob, assault and terrorise stallholders, bus drivers and other bystanders along the East Coast.
“They should face condign justice,” the GHRA said on Saturday in a statement, where it also criticised the blocking of the main public road, which disrupted persons trying to go about their normal business on the East Coast, as well as the “violent and undisciplined” behaviour of the Joint Services both for the expansion of the protest along the East Coast and the terrorizing of the residents of Golden Grove village throughout the night of June 28.
The unrest was preceded by a peaceful protest at Golden Grove over the killing of 23-year-old Quindon Bacchus, who was shot dead on June 10. However, as the numbers grew and an erroneous report that police officer responsible for the death by shooting of Bacchus had been released from custody fueled anger, the protest eventually turned chaotic and resulted in the looting, assault and the destruction of property of a number of vendors at the Mon Repos market on the East Coast.
Some of the protestors blocked off the road in several villages and lit debris to prevent the movement of traffic.
According to the GHRA statement, the disproportion between the alleged cause of the violence and the response seems to point to long-standing poor relations between the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and the communities.
It added that the weakness in the police response is well-known to police forces both locally and internationally, that is, that of police investigating themselves. “Resurrecting the Police Complaints Authority from its slumbers and invoking the Office of Professional Responsibility to suggest impartiality, both of which ultimately are subject to the Police Commissioner, are neither transparent nor convincing. The protesting crowds were egged on by hearing the suspect is under something known as ‘open arrest’, where the detainee is confined to the police compound – a privilege not known to be accorded to anyone other than police officers,” the statement added.
According to the GHRA, these factors become irritants because the police presence in communities is not conducive to confidence. “Relations have suffered from the increased militarization of the GPF presence in rural communities, something which is now more akin to that of a militia than a police service. Police stations, surrounded by barbed wire and concrete epitomize military outposts rather than a protective presence. They repel rather than attract – especially womenfolk. Community-based policing is further debased by reducing this to volunteer civilians in vehicle rather than bicycles, often incentivized by the hope of obtaining a gun licence,” it said.
It also argued that the independence and, resultantly, effectiveness, of the GPF has been systematically undermined by the politicized nature of senior appointments in the GPF and the Police Service Commission since the present administration took office. “This is not a matter of the politics or the ethnicity of the individuals promoted or demoted. It is an illusion to believe that such concerns are too distant to influence events such as that played out on the East Coast last week,” it added.
The GHRA lamented as well social media, which it said ensures the sensationalizing of everything. “We need to pay more attention to the speed through which social media impacts and inflames in the same way we need to separate criminality from genuine protest and the extent to which frustration over police incompetence encourages exaggerated reactions,” it urged.
