Red Thread Letter/Statement on Torture of Teenage Boy

Sent to the media November 2, 2009

We would be making a mistake of enormous proportions if we responded to the torture of the 14 year old boy while in police custody as an isolated act of barbarity by individual out-of-control policemen. The assurances of the Commissioner of Police ring as hollow now as the Chief of Staff’s declarations about the professionalism of the coast guard a few months ago when ranks brutally murdered a young man. These incidents fall into a pattern of behaviour which has been given free rein by the authorities responsible for controlling the activities of the joint forces.

Let the torture of this young boy urge us to stop seeing evil only when it hurts “our side”. Some public opinion is still very coloured by the view that unlawful actions by the security forces against suspected criminals are justified in the interests of public safety. When young men of African descent are tortured or shot dead, a majority of non-Africans accept that they are criminals and that the police violation of law and Constitution is necessary action. Others who are not of this view are silenced by the official responses – if you object to the killing and torture of young men who are suspected of violent crimes, you are in sympathy with violent criminals. In the last several years we have heard these views from the highest officials of the government, and so have the members of the joint services. The fact that the more psychotic among them fail to understand that the worst excesses should only be directed at the “suspected criminals”, and then preferably in circumstances where it is less easy to verify allegations of torture, has now clearly exposed the danger of a population supporting or remaining silent in the face of unlawful actions by law enforcement agencies. We must know that none of us is safe. The professional men and women in these forces must know that they are tarnished by this behaviour, and by their acceptance of unlawful instructions. Their silence about wrong doing in their ranks makes them as guilty as the perpetrators.

Draw the line. It is past time for all Guyanese to oppose the law breaking of elements of the joint services.

Is it accidental that in the midst of the outcry against the latest police outrage the President’s advisor on governance has summoned a meeting on Monday November 2 for a conversation on security sector reform, providing a link to the correspondence between the Government of Guyana and the British on their recent differences of opinion on the security sector project? Will civil society continue to allow itself to be the mask behind which the President continues to excuse and justify the worst excesses of the state machinery?

The torture of this teenager at Leonora is not the action of rogue police officers. It is the action of agents of a state gone rogue. The Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces is ultimately responsible and he must be held to account.

Yours sincerely,
Karen de Souza,
Andaiye
Joycelyn Bacchus
Cora Belle
Red Thread