By Ryhaan Shah
The Commission of Inquiry into the violence of 2002-2009 “will ensure that the culprits are brought to justice,” said President David Granger in referring to the kidnappings and murders that, he added, were fuelled in part by drugs warfare during that crime spree.
Neither Granger nor any PNC member ever admits that “the troubles” included ethnic violence against Indian Guyanese, just as they never acknowledge the ethnic atrocities of the Wismar Massacre, for instance, despite the findings of the CoI into those disturbances and killings of May 1964.
Their denial could well derive from a consciousness of guilt, but with Minister Joseph Harmon, promising that through this Inquiry “you will see how politically inspired many of the killings were in that period… that they got political support, the criminals,” said there is every hope that the Commissioners’ conclusions would leave no doubt as to what occurred, and who was responsible.
The GIHA (Guyana Indian Heritage Association) Crime Report chronicled and analysed one year of the violence, between February 2002 and February 2003, starting with the jailbreak on Republic Day 2002 which triggered the violence that followed.
The daily attacks compiled in the Report were gathered from news reports with dates, times, places and names of victims, and are substantiated by historical, political and economic analyses done by Swami Aksharananda, Mr Ravi Dev, Dr Ramesh Gampat, Dr Somdat Mahabir, and others.
Most of the terror that year was centred in Buxton, and most of the victims were Indian Guyanese villagers on the East Coast. The political/ethnic nature of the attacks was no secret, and the African Guyanese terrorists proudly proclaimed themselves Freedom Fighters, even as they appeared on television embracing their AK-47s and vowing to fight against what they termed “African marginalisation” by the PPP/C Administration.
They received tacit support from the PNC, and the Stabroek News editorial of October 14, 2002 referred to PNC Leader Desmond Hoyte’s speech in Buxton: “He [Hoyte] failed to use the opportunity … to impress upon its [Buxton’s] law abiding citizens and others who have gone the opposite way that law and order is the foundation of any system of administration, and that the banditry that was taking place within their sight had to stop …. Secondly, his statement that Buxton is not harbouring criminals is not grounded in reality. Buxton is harbouring criminals.”
The Executive Summary of the GIHA Crime Report notes that of the total murders committed during the year under study, 30 were Indian Guyanese civilians and police, all gunned down by African Guyanese terrorists.
The killings included those of Detective Sergeant Harry Kooseram on April 15, 2002, at 7am; of Ramdeo and Sita Persaud of Annandale on May 11, 2002 at 7.30pm; and of Haroon Rasheed, who was doused with kerosene and set alight at his Non Pareil home on August 27, 2002 by a gang of African Guyanese youths. He died five days later.
And who can forget the cultural rape of Anita Singh, who had her long hair hacked off with a knife by an African Guyanese bandit on August 4, 2002 at her Melanie Damishana home, as he said: “Ah doing this because ah don’t like coolie.”
While some of the attacks were Black-on-Black violence — police killings, vigilante justice, drug warfare — the majority of the assaults, kidnappings, robberies and rapes were ethnically directed atrocities.
There were 10 kidnappings involving 18 people, all Indian Guyanese. Of these, two were killed, six escaped, nine were released, and the fate of one young carpenter — Sadesh Sahadeo — is still unknown. An estimated $85 million was paid out in ransom to the kidnappers, who were all African Guyanese.
The total transfer of wealth to the bandits amounted to $176.8 million, of which $149.9 million was taken from Indian Guyanese.
As much as this Inquiry is welcome, Granger would be well advised to extend the period under investigation to include the post elections’ violence of 1997. The ugly scenes of African Guyanese women beating white dolls as they “wuk pon she”, she being President Janet Jagan; the ethnic atrocities of January 12, 1998, well annotated in the GIFT (Guyana Indian Foundation Trust) Report; and the PNC “slow fyah mo fyah” campaign and street protests created an environment of fear, violence and lawlessness which fuelled the terror that gripped the country from 2002 onward.
If the Commissioners empanelled for the inquiry into this period of the violence are credible, they will receive copies of the GIHA Crime Report to assist them in their deliberations with the hope that a fair and just conclusion will see both the instigators and perpetrators brought to justice.
