Region 5 REO allegedly assaults farmer

Police in West Berbice have been called in to investigate an alleged assault on a Region Five farmer by the Regional Executive Officer (REO), Ovid Morrison.
The assault allegedly took place on a farm at Naarstigheid on a plot of land which Krishna Sewlall had been occupying for decades. Only recently, he was forced to remove when the REO ordered an excavator to destroy his crops.
Sections of the media have reported that that REO wanted to develop a model farm there. Sewlall told Guyana Times that he had gone to his farm on Wednesday and was about to leave when he was attacked by the REO.
He explained that a man who works with the REO, and who was carrying a cutlass at the time approached him, as the REO followed.
According to Sewlall, the REO blocked him from exiting the farm and as he attempted to walk around him, the official held onto his waist and told him that he was carrying out a citizen’s arrest.
He said as he fell to the ground, he rolled into a drain and the REO put his arms around his neck and began to chock him.
During that time the worker with the cutlass stood over the farmer and the REO kept him on the ground while searching him.
According to Sewlall, while on the ground, he begged Morrison to stop since he was bleeding from the nostrils. The ordeal ended after a Police Officer arrived on the scene. Sewelall said he was taken to the Police station and then sent to the Fort Wellington Hospital.
Sewlall and two other farmers whose farms were bulldozed went to the High Court seeking an injunction against the REO, preventing him from occupying the land.
Meanwhile, the Police have since been furnished with a copy of the writ which was filed in the High Court which claims that the farmers have been occupying the land since 1989 and were granted a two-year lease for 1.4 acres in the March 2000 under the Social Impact Amelioration Project (SIMAP) for large-scale farming.
They claimed that since the expiration of their leases, they have developed the said property, cured the soil and prepared it for farming.