Truth and Reconciliation Commission needed to get to bottom of claim about 400 men killed

Dear Editor, Following my letter of 25th November in which I asked for an independent investigation of the narrative of the ‘execution of 400 Black men’, I was sent the original document, in which the claim was made by the People’s National Congress Reform party. After reading the document I can safely say that no one currently making that claim has read this document, for far from being a list of black men killed extra-judicially, this was a call for inquiry into various cases of alleged human rights abuse over a 17 year span (1993-2009).

Editor, there are a handful of names on this list that would warrant a commission of inquiry, principal among these would be Ronald Waddell, Sash Sawh and Yohance Douglas; the rest of the document is an odious bundling of innocents and police officers with the very people who murdered them. How can I describe the revulsion I experienced to see the names of the Lusignan massacre victims, men, women and children brutally murdered in their own homes, included on this list next to notorious murderers such as Shawn Brown, Troy Dick, Jermaine ‘Skinny’ Charles and Rondell ‘Fineman’ Williams, the very men murdered them! How do the families of the 35 policemen included on this list feel about them being named alongside the men who brutally murdered them? I am horrified that someone equated the lives of victims with the perpetrators of their demise without a thought of the additional hurt this would cause their families.

The intellectual authors of this document were strangely silent after there was a change in Administration 2015, H.E Granger referred to ‘troubles’ to describe an era that included massacres, violent warfare between rival criminal gangs commonly referred to as the ‘fineman gang’ and ‘phantom squad’. Leader of the Opposition, former President Bharrat Jagdeo welcomed an inquiry into the ‘troubles’, “let’s have the mother of all inquiries” he said in 2005 and repeated it in 2016, and alluded to political control of the Fineman and other criminal gangs; President Granger named the massacres that occurred in Kitty, Lamaha Gardens, Bourda (2002) Buxton-Friendship, Prashad Nagar (2003) Agricola-Eccles, La Bonne Intention, Bagotstown-Eccles, Black Bush Polder (2006) Bartica and Lusignan (2008) as incidents for which there has been no resolution and which require investigation during the ‘troubles’.

Interestingly, the only incident of this period that has been subject of an inquiry is the Lindo Creek massacre; the one atrocity denied by the Fineman gang, this massacre occurred during the period the Fineman gang were on the run in that geographical area and were apportioned the blame. The Lindo Creek COI was tainted from the outset with the appointment of retired Judge Donald Trotman, father of Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman as lead commissioner and Patrice Henry, brother of Minister of Education Nicolette Henry as its attorney at law; it therefore came as no surprise when the Fineman gang was exonerated and the Joint Services were implicated; this COI raised more questions than answers. Was vindication of the Fineman gang the objective? Why were none of the other massacres not subjects of inquiry?

Despite wide circulation to international organizations such as the United Nations, this dossier never compelled any recipient to begin an inquiry, partly because it is a poorly compiled document which does not survive a cursory examination. For example, among those listed are two GDF officers, Lt. Colonels Ross and Narine who died of heart attacks, 26 unidentified males including ‘gunman’, many who were killed by bandits during robberies and bandits killed in Police/Bandit shootouts such as Chowtee, Eddo, Bully et al. The list contains a significant number of Indo-Guyanese and other ethnicities so as to render the ‘400 black men’ claim meaningless, there are also names repeated so as to bolster the figures.

Editor, In researching this claim of 400, I have come to the conclusion that Guyana is in need of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as done in South Africa post-apartheid, The mandate of that commission was to bear witness to, record, and in some cases grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations, as well as offering reparation and rehabilitation to the victims. Unless Guyana engages in a similar exercise, our nation will forever be vulnerable to those willing to tell big bold lies such as contained in the dossier of the 400, let us always seek truth regardless of the consequence “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” John 8:32 (King James Bible)

Yours faithfully, Robin Singh but to bet on an undiversified Guyana economy saddled with more and more regulations blissfully promulgated and introduced to stave off the corruption and dirty money that usually come with windfall oil revenues. On the latter score of regulatory creep, be not deceived Editor by talk of the EITI and the Natural Resource Fund, oil revenues (which fall within the classic definition of Ricardian rent) will not be mocked: Wherever there are rents there will be rent seekers and rent seeking behaviour!

ScotiaBank’s and Baroda’s prescience in recognising that the traditional sectors could decline with the windfall oil revenues might in fact be attributed to their attention to their profits – an attention that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like other multinationals that shop around the world for the highest “expected” rates of return, international commercial banks weigh both the financial returns and the risks that would, if realised, impair their asset portfolios and profit streams. To the extent that Baroda and Scotiabank both invested in the agricultural, manufacturing and even mining sectors, both would be worried about the quality of these assets if the real exchange rate were to appreciate significantly; but even if they didn’t invest in those sectors, they will certainly be worried about an arbitrary, hawkish, cumbersome regulatory framework that makes it virtually impossible to conduct international transactions and makes potential criminals of all local investors, their customers. Yours faithfully, Thomas B. Singh