Dear Editor,
When I saw pictures of the two butchered Black youths, I knew right away they were not ordinary killings. I immediately told friends. We all agreed the heinous murders were not the work of any farmer. No farmer could have killed that way and not dispose of the bodies. No one gets killed that way for coconuts. Something else was at play. The bodies had visible marks that suggest something other than a normal murder.
The Police, detectives, and national security officials should have immediately recognised that it was not a routine, run-of-the-mill chopping to death. I don’t wish to prejudge what happened. Gangsters kill people savagely. They leave marks to send a clear message to others. Could the killings be gang-related? Something went horribly wrong. Could the youths have known, or held, some secrets, and were eliminated to bury the secrets? The Police must look at these angles. What is clear is the murders were not politically or praedial larceny-related.
As an educator who taught for over 35 years, working with youngsters; and as a dean and administrative figure, and with administration including at the college level, I can recognise signs of gangs and their activities. Educators are trained to detect these activities, and file reports. In the classroom, some even tried to get me to emulate their gang signs.
My sociology training also equips me to identify these kinds of crimes and propose measures to deter them. Gang violence is routine, and gangs are present in all societies. Guyanese are known to emulate bad trends in America, where gang violence is institutionalised. There are gangs in Guyana, in the schools and communities. I didn’t realise they have reached the rural areas already.
The Police must not dismiss this angle, and the Ministry of Education needs to direct attention to gang-related activities among students, and take measures to stamp them out.
Gang activities in today’s world may appear as normal teen-related activities, but they are not. They can lead to violence, as happened at several schools and at a school at No 8 Village, where a teenager beat up a female head teacher a few years ago.
Whoever did this atrocity must be brought to justice; the death penalty must be considered. And whoever supported the revenge violence, killing two innocent people in the process, must also be brought to justice. They are no different from the perpetrators of the murder of the two Henry boys.
Let me applaud Volda Lawrence and her team once again for condemning the race revenge violence and those associated with it. The latter doesn’t belong in our politics.
Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram
