Dear Editor,
Cindy Ramchandar was born as Guyana’s Domestic Violence Act came into being. Cindy Ramchandar did everything according to her family – did not stay long in the abusive marriage, made a report to the Number 51 police station about the first knife attack, tried to protect herself. The man who killed her was probably a child too while community groups and non-governmental organisations in Guyana, including Berbice tried to change things for domestic violence. To do the education, to try to change the police, to get the religious community involved, to talk about alcohol and violence. Doing all of this in the resistance as many people did not want to change anything, to do the fundamental transformation and healing work to realise that domestic violence and other forms of gender based violence are part of the culture of saying what is male/masculine should be more dominant, powerful than anything that is not.
The man drove from Canje to Number 47 on his mission. Did he see the Indian Arrival Monument at Palmyra? Armed as some of our ancestors were, on the same mission to kill, chop, destroy the women they were supposed to love? The man’s car abandoned not far from the monument reportedly, with some poison in it.
What would be needed to connect that Indian Arrival Monument and the other monuments to the need to transform the legacies they represent? To connect those monuments so that other descendants of the enslaved and the indentured would not abuse, kill the people the people they are supposed to love?
As the man drove to kill, anything on the roadside telling him to stop? Any big writing there saying ‘Hey man, don’t beat your wife/girl?, turn back” Driving past all the promise of oil in Berbice, and so on, the sugar estates which have not been profitable and self sustaining for a long time, all the other forms of violence committed and accepted.
On that journey , passing other police stations, rum shops, places of worship which are part of the culture which should have stopped him, turned him back, but which are not transforming fast enough to stop him.
The relatives report that Cindy Ramchandar made a report to the Number 51 police station. Another story about a police station which was not able to help Cindy Ramchandar. The Spotlight Initiative has spent money on training police and hoping for the best. But stories come out, there is no consistent quality response. Some police good, some bad. There is some abusive jumbie haunting the Guyana Police Force so that no matter how much training and so on, that citizens are never assured that they will get the protection.
What about the ‘male cousin’ and other unnamed others who facilitated the meeting up and yearned for making up? What stories are there for the religious leaders and social workers and others who really want people to make up rather than break up when the violence has already broken things?
Cindy Ramchandar did everything she could do to stay safe. Neither she nor any other citizen should have to live in fear of anyone else. There is a push to shout ‘Leave’, ‘Get help” But that does not always work out as we are learning in Guyana. Because other work has to be done to deal with the nurturing and the use of violence in our society, which is creating more abusers and killers.
Yours sincerely,
Vidyaratha Kissoon
