Probe targeted at joint services officials –Fmr Minister

Lindo Creek COI

Government’s decision to launch an investigation into the Lindo Creek massacre which claimed the lives of eight miners has been described as a strategic move targeting joint services officials who had been at the helm of administration at the time of that incident.
This is the view of former Home Affairs Minister Gail Teixeira, who once served as a presidential adviser. She told Guyana Times in a recent interview that while the Opposition supports such a probe, it is one that must be questioned because the

motive behind starting with just one inquiry may have its own political objective.
“Their target isn’t their sitting ministers; their target is the joint services, (whom) they have never forgiven; those men who tried in the worst crime wave to handle the situation, and those who remain loyal to the Government of the day — not to the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) — as required by the Constitution,” she opined.
“Some of those chaps were never forgiven because there was another under-plot, which was the plot to get rid of the PPP; and the whole crime wave surrounding that plot to get rid of PPP (lasted) from 2002-2008,” she continued.
The former minister noted that there have always been calls from all sides of the political divide to have a comprehensive Commission of Inquiry (CoI) covering a wide range of incidents that saw several people being murdered. This, she noted, should have also included incidents that occurred during the 2002-2008 period.
She recalled that when President David Granger had been Opposition Leader, he had, in 2012, tabled a motion in Parliament calling for an inquiry into incidents that had taken place specifically between 2002 and 2010, but did not include the worst crime spree, starting with the prison break at Camp Street in 2002.
“We had proposed amendments to the motion that instead called for a Reconciliation Commission that allowed victims and their families…people who had inside information, to feel there was a level of trust and confidence to come forward and not be prosecuted,” she reminded.
While again questioning the move to have the Lindo Creek massacre alone investigated, Teixeira recalled that the People’s National Congress (PNC), the major party in the coalition Government, had in 2008 stated that collusion of the joint services was responsible for the massacre.
The former minister said that ever since then, neither the PNC nor Granger, its current leader, ever placed any significant emphasis on having both the Lusignan and Bartica massacres probed. She therefore believes that it is deliberate to have inquiries started with the Lindo Creek massacre.
Teixeira has also noted recent statements made by President Granger when he stated that the CoI into the Lindo Creek massacre would help to “unravel” the other issues that had to do with the crime wave.
“Unless he knows something we don’t know, we don’t quite see how that can be possible. And even from a political point of view, where children are murdered, from a political and moral perspective — you’ve just had the Lusignan anniversary and you had a minister talk about a comprehensive CoI — and next two days you say we will have it in parcels, and Lindo is set up,” she told <<Guyana Times >>.
The Opposition MP has said she finds it shameful that the Government would attend that 10th anniversary ceremony for the Lusignan massacre victims and not give a commitment to conduct a probe into that specific incident that saw innocent adults and children brutally killed.

Impartiality
Another major issue for the Opposition has to do with the partisan manner in which the CoI was established. While noting that she has nothing against retired Justice Donald Trotman who was recently appointed as the lone person to conduct the Lindo Creek CoI, Teixeira said she finds it very worrying that Government would appoint someone who is the father of a sitting Cabinet minister. Apart from that, the Opposition MP noted statements made by Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, who said recently that the CoI would have to decide whether senior officers have to be sent on leave.
“CoI just sworn in with one man, and here is the mega-minister and chief right-hand man to the President (Harmon) saying some people might have to go,” she added.
She said that statement alone sends a negative message that would cause people not to have any trust and confidence in the Commission.
Further, Teixeira said the issue of impartiality must be pointed out also, because she recalled that when the PPP Government had launched CoIs into the disturbances in Line and the assassination of former Working People’s Alliance leader Dr. Walter Rodney, the then Opposition had been consulted. “We had bipartisan consultation, and they also helped to decide the Terms of Reference”, she said.
However, in the case of the latest CoI, like the others that were launched, the Opposition was never included.