MY attention has been directed to a letter in the press on October 15, 2010, headlined Green’s call very ironic by Mr. Martindale in response to Hamilton Green’s call for the establishment of a Truth Commission. Mr. Martindale’s opinion is that Mr. Green shall not wait for a truth commission to come clean, and I agree with him. Green’s request for such a commission suggests that he has something to confess – it may be something(s)– I do not know. But Mr. Green, JP can without waiting put at rest the trauma of the family of Rose Ann Barrow. He must tell us how Rose Ann met her death at his Ministry at Homestretch Avenue when he was a Minister of the Government. Let him say who shot her at point blank range in his Ministry’s office when all she was doing was offering for sale milk powder to staff members to supplement her pitiful income in order to maintain her infant children. And while he is so doing he can tell us something of the death of Vincent Teekah, Shirley Field Patterson, one time wife of former Jamaica Prime Minister, PJ Patterson and the life threatening injuries of Josh Ramsammy.
And Editor may I take this opportunity to raise two other issues. I read that government has removed the death penalty for certain capital offences. In his speech Mr. Prakash Ramjattan declared that the move was good because a person has the constitutional right to life. That strikes me that what he was saying that a person convicted for murder should not be sentenced to death because of his right to life. The reason: Is this person God’s gift to mankind so that he can kill those who not entitled to the protection of the constitution of the right to life? One can kill to his heart’s delight and then pleads for his life on a constitutional ground of his right to live?
There seems to be merit in this argument because the almost daily slaughter of citizens by others and no mention is made of those deceased and their families by some organisation called Guyana Human Rights Association. They may be right to keep quiet because if someone dies, no matter how, he has no rights, human or otherwise. But the criminals only have rights and when they are receiving their just desserts, society comes to their aid and says they have human rights and nothing must happen to them.