…It cannot run from its record of crime and insecurity

Dear Editor,
I WATCH with amazement as the PPP embarks on a campaign to run from its record. It is astounding that a party which has been in power for two plus decades would ignore those 23 years as it campaigns for the upcoming elections. One would imagine that a party that has been in office for all this time would have been proud and confident to run on its record. Instead, all we hear from the opposition is criticism of the coalition’s last four years in office and a dogma of distraction. I am not at all saying that the PPP should not examine the record of their rivals, what I am contending is that any party which has been in power for more than two decades would have found it useful to entice the voter with its accomplishments, as opposed to using the majority of its time to harp on illusory accusations against their main opponent. However, the fact that the PPP decided that it may not be useful to run on its record should be of no surprise to the average voter.

This decision clearly indicates that they are not excited about that record. But, why should they be? I am not naive, nor will I bury my head in the sand and pretend that the PPP did nothing in those 23 years. In fact, I would admit that they have done quite a lot! The question is, what were those “lots”? Were they primarily positive or were they mainly negative? I am quite sure the people will tell you that they were negative.
Editor, since the PPP decided that it will run from its record, I have decided that I will confront that record and remind us of those 23 years. Yes, the PPP has done some things, but among those realities are some of the most egregious acts to have ever happened within the borders of the 83,000 square miles of Guyana. Guyanese will tell you that events during those 23 years, of PPP rule, have left scores of families with permanent holes. These are the realities that are so poignantly reflected upon by many families, even as they try to move past that period of unthinkable atrocities. The PPP, therefore, knows that any attempt to run on its record will, as of automaticity, replay those terrifying images in the minds of the people. Images that have come to form a large part of their legacy. The party understands that to run on its record means that it would have to confront the ugliness and the brutal images that are steadily tied to those 23 years of PPP rule. Thus, the PPP, and its frontline advocates continue to use their political platform to either evade its record or obfuscate it. The party has refused to forcefully confront those 23 years, for to do so the party would have to start with an honest and open apology to the nation. An apology that is long overdue and an apology that may occasion an opening for the national healing to begin. However, it is clear that Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP are unprepared to do so. In fact, there is no inkling of evidence that the PPP might be even remorseful for that “black hole” it has tunnelled into Guyana’s history. What the PPP hopes, is that the people will just forget about their trauma, just get over it and vote for them! This thinking I would describe as presumptuous and disrespectful! I do not call for an apology because I want to! I call for it because I believe it is absolutely necessary and the right thing to do! The PPP cannot run from its record!

Editor, what are these most egregious acts I allude to and what is the PPP’s record? I am quite sure that no one needs any clue or probing to remind them of these things, as the mental and physical images remain most vivid in our minds. However, allow me to confront the PPP with their record that they continue to ignore. I speak, not as a third person, an average bystander or a regurgitator of hearsay accounts! I write here as someone with a first-person account, as I have been integrally involved in the struggles against these most brutal acts, which follows the 23 years of PPP rule. These acts were tied up in an apparent criminal corrupt policy carried out in plain sight. I have been following the PPP’s campaign as I follow others, and at the party’s campaign launch I thought I might have heard a remorseful tone from Opposition Leader Jagdeo and those leading the PPP campaign charge, but I did not! I thought that the party might have used the opportunity to muster the moral courage to express regrets for that unthinkable period. So, since the PPP believes it has nothing to apologise to the nation for, let me take this opportunity to remind them of some of those dastardly cruel, and inhumane acts against the people.

The PPP’s record would demand that it apologize for the death squad it allowed to run freely around the country.  A squad that unleashed terror and pain on Guyanese. The death squad appeared to have been adopted by the PPP as a crime fighting strategy. It seemed to have been the government’s policy initiative supported and implemented by the decision makers at the highest level. Why do I think this? Remember, then Home Affairs Minister and now deceased, Ronald Gajraj’s stunning admission in the parliament. The Home Affairs Minister’s comments convinced everyone that the government was appeared to have been aiding and abetting the operations of a death squad in the country. I was right there, in the National Assembly when Minister Gajraj pompously admitted to the nation that he was in communication with the death squad. His reasoning was that they were helping him to solve crime. Gajraj spoke with confidence. It appeared clear to all that he was executing his government’s policy. I was shocked! I believe, however, that the only reason the admission was done publicly was because Gajraj’s phone records obtained. Those records showed that he was in constant communication with known members of the death/phantom squad. I recall my colleague, now deceased Deborah Backer M.P, leading the charge to pressure Gajraj to respond to questions on the functioning of a death squad. Gajraj’s admission of knowledge and apparent government’s approval of the death squad was a most devastating moment for me. It was unbelievable and surreal. While I had my suspicion about who was behind these wanton killings it was difficult for me to hear the government actually admit knowledge of its cooperation with the squad. This reality has left a gaping hole inside of me. I value life, so the slaughter of innocent people was already taking its effects on me.
The PPP’s  record of its 23 years in government has been marred by a period of inconceivable crime and corruption, of a magnitude and breed that was shockingly audacious. The apparent PPP government sanctioned death squad was the main enforcers of the mayhem that engulfed Guyana during that infamous period. The pain and bedlam the squad and its parent body unleashed on the nation cannot be reckoned. This period has left us with some gruesome images and haunting memories that cannot simply disappear.  A few weeks ago, while campaigning around Georgetown I ran into mothers and entire communities still in pain and grief. Many of my interactions commenced with their, unsolicited reflection and condemnation of the death squad. They associate its damning effects directly to the Bharrat Jagdeo/PPP rule. Some people recounted their personal experiences during that shameful period. For instance, while campaigning in Georgetown a few weeks ago, I met a mother who still carries her son’s photograph in her purse every day. As she spoke of her son I recognize that her grief was still real. Jagdeo and the PPP must apologize!

Editor, I don’t believe I would be able to chronicle the litany of atrocities committed, under the Bharrat Jagdeo/ PPP watch, by their “crime fighting unit/death squad”. The record is exhausting. So, I will use the space here to merely highlight a few, but we will never forget the many. The people will specifically remember the slaying of Donna McKinnon, on April 9, 2001. McKinnon bullet riddled body was discovered aback an open premises adjacent Freedom House. Her body was covered with zinc sheets. People recall hearing gunshots emanating from the direction of the Freedom House back door where, eyewitnesses stated that a man dressed in black clothes and dark sun glasses was positioned. Many claimed to have seen the man’s long riffle. According to many, this was a Freedom House hit job intended to scare protestors off the street or put them in check. However, to date no one was charged for McKinnon’s murder. No surprise here! In those days of PPP rule, that was the order. It was the new normal!  With all the brazen slaughter and broad daylight kidnapping no one was charged, while the death squad was in charge! Justice escaped those seeking justice.

How can we forget the July 26, 2001 brutal slaying of Antoine Houston, John Bruce and Steve Grant (The Mandela Trio) who were brutally gunned down on Mandela Avenue! Bruce and Grant were shot 11 times and Houston shot in the back of his head and other parts of his body.  Despite, his hands in the air begging for his life he was killed. These were three young black men who were still under 30 years old. The holes in their families will always be there. Guyanese cannot forget the brutal slaying of Shaka Blair. On April 6, 2002 Blair was brutally murdered when a group of Guyana Police Force Target Special Squad (TSS) (another disguised section of the phantom squad) barged into his home and pumped bullets into his body, while he slept alongside his young children. The image of the blood-stained bedroom floor and bed sheets still lingers in my head. I visited Blair’s home that hapless morning, with Opposition Leader H.D Hoyte. Mr. Hoyte’s outraged was at its apex. The question was, how can the police take to killing men in front of their children, in the name of crime fighting. We cannot forget these records! People will not forget the many lifeless bullet riddled bodies of men, left lying in the streets all over Georgetown and Guyana. People will not forget those men who were sitting on Robb Street having a good night out when they were gunned down and left to bleed to death in the streets. How can we forget!

People do not forget the horrors that engulfed their everyday lives. They do not forget the brothers, George and Shaheed Bacchus who were slain six months apart. These brothers also fell victims of the death squad. Many can vividly recall George Bacchus’ affidavit in which he recounted the operations of the death squad as he outlined the PPP government’s connection to it. George Bacchus was one of the death squad informants who had direct access to the Minister of Home Affairs, Gajraj. Bacchus confessed that the slaughtering of the innocent had become unbearable and so, decided that he was duty-bound to speak out against what he considered to be a cruel gang that was killing with impunity. Guyanese remember, when they were glued to their television sets waiting for the evening news to hear of where the death squad had struck next and to find out who were its victims.  They recall George Bacchus stepping forward to express his obvious regrets and frustration of the actions of a gang he was familiar with. We watched as Bacchus read from his affidavit as he exposed the dreadful nature of the squad. Bacchus was visibly shaken! He recounted that men were killing for money, and he could no longer stand and watch innocent people die! He stated that he advised Minister Gajraj that things were really getting out of hand, but that the minister took his concerns and complaints about the phantom squad right back to the ears of the gang members. Bacchus, who noted that at this point he realized that the government was also acting as an informant to the death squad. Bacchus, after realizing he could not depend on the Jagdeo led PPP government to protect him, sought refuge at the US Embassy. Bacchus took his sworn affidavit to the US Embassy in Guyana where he was apparently interviewed. He also met with Former PNCR leader Robert Corbin, who helped to further expose the PPP branded killing squad.  I believe, the local Human Rights organizations and other international bodies were contacted. Bacchus knew his life was in danger. He stated that the death squad was out to permanently silence him, especially since he had exposed its functioning and connection to the government. He was right! So, in January 2004 his brother Shaheed Bacchus was gunned down in a hail of bullets by men in a car that drove passed him as he sat on his bike in front of his home. News reports revealed that those bullets were intended for George. However, on June 24, 2004 Bacchus was silenced while he slept in his home! This was the PPP’s record!
How can people forget the PPP’s record!  How can we forget Victor Bourne, who was shot and killed in his home in Rasville, Roxanne Burnham Gardens, while he slept! How can we forget 24-year-old taxi driver Sherwin Manohar, who was abducted on June 15, 2003 by known death squad members! News reports stated that at the time of his abduction he was babysitting for his girlfriend. Manohar was never seen again until his bullet-riddled body turned up on the access road to Cummings Lodge on August 15, 2003. Sadly, this was a pattern. It was the way many mothers learned of their children’s demise; bodies turned up on the streets. We remember three months prior to Manohar’s death another Lloyd Bourne was abducted and slain. People recalled his mother Pam Fletcher’s emotional and passionate plea for justice. Pam explained that she came to know of her son’s death while watching the evening news, When yet another body was found on the public highway. According to reports, Bourne worked at a funeral parlour and he had good knowledge of where the bodies of many who were abducted were hidden and/or dismembered. Since her son’s death Pam Fletcher and her daughter were permanent protestors in front of Ronald Gajraj’s office. I ran into Ms. Fletcher and her daughter last July and the grief and pain were still raw. How can I tell her to just move on, how dare the PPP tell her to just move on! Pam Fletcher must get an apology from Jagdeo and the PPP, because her son’s death was part of their crime-fighting record.

The PPP’s record of shame continued! How can Guyanese forget the kidnapping of Agricola resident Kenneth Bacchus? It was reported that Bacchus was a young police officer who quit the job because he was being pressured to join the death squad. However, those who operated and managed the squad would not let him escape. So, his mother reported that one evening a van load of men dressed in military fatigues and police uniforms descended upon their home. According to Bacchus’s mom, whom I interviewed a few times after the abduction of her son, the men entered her premises, snatched her son and threw him at the back of the van. Bacchus was handcuffed and made to lie face down and had stuff thrown to cover him up. The men gave her no explanation for taking her son, even as she pleaded and begged for mercy. What was sad about this incident was that Bacchus’s young children stood there and witnessed the act. After her son was taken Pastor Patsy, as I called her, made every attempt to find out the whereabouts of her son. Her numerous outreaches to the police were met with roadblocks. With the help of members of the community she followed every lead she received, even turning up at burial ground and dumping grounds to try to find her son’s body. She pleaded on national television for the return of her son’s body as she was convinced he had been killed. During those days once you were missing you were quickly presumed to be dead. Pastor Patsy’s relentless efforts to find her son or his body proved futile. This was a woman of God whose faith kept her going. Sadly, she died a few years ago. Pastor Patsy left this world without having the closure she so desperately pleaded for and needed. I recall our last conversation; all she begged for was to know where her son was! Her pain gripped me the day I visited her. It was a pain only a mother knows. The mayhem, pain, sadness and emptiness the death squad unleashed in Guyana is second to none in the nation’s history! And so, the PPP must apologise! It must apologise for aiding and abetting a killing squad, as acknowledged by then Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj. I was struck by Gajraj’s defence of the squad when be emphatically stated on the floor of the National Assembly, that if he had to he would do it all over again. He was praising the death squad he acknowledged was his crime-fighting unit! These were his words not mine; the Hansard is there to prove it! I was taken aback by his comments. I sat there thinking, if he can say this with such passion and conviction, then it must be assumed that the death squad was a part of the PPP’s crime- fighting strategy. It has to be the government’s policy, supported from the very top of the government. So, when Mr. Jagdeo said that his prime ministerial candidate will be responsible for crime and security, how do we know this security policy does not speak to the reintroduction of death squads in Guyana! The PPP must apologise to the nation!
To even think that the people will disremember these piercing and pivotal moments of their reality is disrespectful. It is like saying that they can care less about the atrocities that have been committed against their families, neighbours, friends and fellow human beings. Many mothers and fathers still grieve for their children. We remember the infamous 2002 jail break which saw notorious criminals wreaking havoc in the country. We were led to believe that this gang had a mission of its own, but what caused Guyanese to start scratching their heads was when they found out that the gang members were living and operating from a dwelling adjacent to Minister of Home Affairs Ronald Gajraj. These criminals appeared to have been his neighbours! The nation became aware of this during a brutal exchange of gunfire which left men sprawled dead on the fence which separates the two lots. People ask, how did the minister not know about this?! Was it, incompetence, ignorance or something more sinister? The PPP has never explained this reality and for this they must apologise!

People will remember the ambush, in broad daylight, of Yohance Douglas and his friends on Sherriff Street on March 1, 2003. We remember that fateful day when members of the death squad stopped the students who were travelling along Sheriff Street when they were stopped by members of the Guyana Police Force killing squad. Reports are that these five young men had just finished playing a game of basketball and were minding their business when the squad sneaked up on them told them to exit the car and began unleashing bullets on them. Yohance Douglas was killed after he was rushed to the hospital. His friend Ronson Grey was shot in his mouth, the three others suffered other injuries. These police killers tried to plant a wig on him and attempted to make him out to be a criminal, as they had done to many other people.  However, that did not work. Yohance was a second-year University of Guyana student with an unblemished school record and character. He was a young man who has never had as much as a speeding ticket. Yohance Douglas’s case seemed like the watershed moment, as it brought out thousands more people on the streets to protest the slaying of this young man. Contrariwise, the slaughter and mayhem continued unabated. In fact, one would argue that it had gained greater momentum.
What else must the PPP apologise for? The party must apologise for the criminal culture it allowed to develop and foster during its tenure in office. They must therefore come clean on the death of their own minister and apologise! We cannot forget that LBI slaughter! On April 22, 2006, during the reign of Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP, Minister “Sash” Sawh, two of his siblings and his security guard were slain at Sawh’s LBI home. The PPP must come clean and let the nation know the details behind Sawh’s slaying. Guyanese will never forget the unthinkable, almost back to back, massacres that occurred on this land. On January 26, 2008, the community of Lusignan suffered a cruel blow.  On that day gunmen stormed the community and massacred men, women and children. After the bullets had subsided, entire families were almost wiped out as they slept; the wounded were left to pick up the pieces. In that one night 11 lives were lost. As if the nation was not already in a state of shock, almost three weeks later the mining community of Bartica was on the receiving end of the wrath of this mayhem. On February 17, 2008, men strapped with AK-47s (the most prevalent weapon at the time) stormed Bartica. They cleared everyone in their path, including police officers. They overran the entire Bartica Police station and when the dust had settled, three police officers were among the 12 lifeless bodies. This was the state of the security situation in Guyana. Crime and corruption were at their zenith! The death squad occasioned a crime spree never known to Guyana. The PPP created this history! A brutal history they must apologise for! How can we forget when the lives of police officers were threatened almost every day! The police were no safer than the citizens they took an oath to protect. The death squad had a strangle hold on the police force itself, so many decent, law-abiding officers who were interested in staying true to their oath became targets. I cannot go through the list of all the police officers who lost their lives or were injured during this infamous crime-infested period. However, I cannot forget the young traffic cop Quincy James, who was gunned down on Regent and King Streets while he was performing his duties, on December 4, 2002. James was killed when scores of gunmen in bright daylight went to rob a store on Regent Street, hijacked vehicles and unleashed a hail of bullets as they made their escape. Constable James’s killing was a dagger to many of us, especially those of us who depended on him to help us cross that busy intersection. He also was very kind and courteous, and had an infectious smile. We can never forget Constable Quincy James. This was the PPP’s record!
Editor, I did not live through the 60s and therefore I have no first-hand experience of the much talked about racial strife that caused the violence that occurred during that time. However, I do have first-hand experience of what happened during the 23 years of the PPP’s rule in Guyana, and the trauma of that period is rife. During those years I cannot count how many funerals I attended. Funerals of slain Guyanese who were killed for absolutely no reason. During those PPP years, most of us went to work with black and red, as those came to become the colours associated with the funerals we went to after work. The ritual was, go to work and after work it was either funeral or protesting for some mother’s child who was gunned down. That was how my day went! I can’t forget the numerous times I walked in funeral processions from Georgetown to village after East Coast village to bury a slain young black man. I can’t forget the mothers who cried on my shoulder as we met for television interviews. I cannot forget the many photographs of countless naked bullet-riddled bodies of young black men who lay on an over-crowded floor at the Georgetown Hospital Mortuary. The violence against the slain and the executed continued even at the mortuary. Killing human beings had become an epidemic in Guyana under the PPP! For this they must apologise!
How can the nation forget the date January 30, 2006, when Ronald Waddell was brazenly assassinated? Waddell was a known critic of the PPP government. He used his television programme to fearlessly expose the regime. On that fateful day he was brutally assassinated as he attempted to exit his car and enter his yard. The gunmen ensured that they pumped enough bullets into him to make sure he was dead. Clearly, it appeared that he had to be silenced. To date, no one has been held accountable for his assassination. Sadly, this was the way things were under the PPP! The wanton killing spree happened almost effortlessly, whether in broad daylight or in the middle of the night, but the killers largely evaded justice. Justice was absent from the nation. Hence, the PPP must apologise!
Editor, it would be remiss of me to end this letter without referencing the assassination of Courtney Crum-Ewing. On March 10, 2015, Ewing’s bullet-riddled body was found at Third Avenue, Diamond New Scheme. Ewing was a regular one-man protestor in front of then Attorney General Anil Nandlall’s office. He exercised that constitutional right to protest against what he saw as the common lack of decency and accountability of the office holder. Minutes prior to his assassination, Ewing was in the said area with a bullhorn urging and reminding people to vote for the coalition government in the upcoming May 11, 2015 elections. However, it appears that some intended for him not to cast his own vote. Many believed that Crum-Ewing was killed because of his activism. It appeared that Courtney, exercising his democratic right to protest, was a threat to some. Three years earlier, three Lindeners were also executed while protesting. We cannot forget the date July 18, 2012, when Ivan Lewis, Ron Somerset and mentally challenged young man Shemroy Bouyea were gunned down by the police, while thousands were protesting an increase in electricity tariffs for Linden. How can we forget! For this the PPP must apologise! This was the PPP’s record!
The PPP must also apologise to the nation for intimating, through the comments of the then Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud, that the Jagdeo/PPP government sanctioned the torturing of Guyanese. I wrote to express my outrage on this shortly after Mr. Persaud’s comments were made. The Guyanese people cannot just wish away these things, when in fact these damning utterances happened in the National Assembly, while these PPP ministers of government were delivering presentations in that august body! Guyanese remember the names Sumners, Jones and others who were badly beaten and even burnt by members of the “PPP joint services.” Robert Persaud, in his defence of the actions of those who tortured the men, laughingly claimed that the beating and cruel actions meted out to these men were “mere roughing up.” These were his words! Guyanese saw the badly beaten and disoriented men who were on national television recounting their horror and exposing the horrible wounds on their bodies. These images we will not forget! The PPP must apologise! How can we forget the trumped-up treason charge against Mark Benchop, who spent years languishing in jail as Mr. Jagdeo demanded that he beg for pardon! The people will never forget those who were executed at Office of the President on that disastrous June 2002 date.
Editor, I believe that the PPP owes the nation an apology for trauma it inflicted on the country. I think it is a blatant insult for the PPP to return to Guyanese and ask them to return them to power after they have put the country through so much. How dare Mr. Jagdeo and the PPP think that they can simply turn up and solicit votes from Guyanese families who sit at dinner tables with empty chairs. Empty chairs that remind them of their young male children whose lives has been callously taken from them. How dare the PPP try to minimise the trauma of these families! The PPP and Mr. Jagdeo have a responsibility to apologise to the nation and let the healing begin! I pray that Mr. Jagdeo find the moral courage to offer a sincere apology to the nation. It was Robert F. Kennedy who posited that “Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”
I submit that Guyana is a society that yields most painfully to change. A change that can occasion a time of healing and forgiveness. That change must be from the hardened position of the PPP, to ignore the damage and trauma they have caused families. The pain the emptiness they have left many children, who became fatherless at an early age. I pray that as a nation we come to understand that the day-to- day struggles of many families continue. Those who were able to leave the country to escape the pain and memory did so, others face the inescapable.
I pray for the healing to begin.
Sincerely
Lurlene Nestor