LEADER of the opposition, David Granger, recently tabled a Motion in the House in which he is asking for the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry (COI) to investigate certain killings, deemed extra-judicial in some quarters, in the early 2000s.

During the period in reference, political analyst, Freddie Kissoon had written a seven-part series on the subject of reference, in which he also looked at the integral role some prominent members of the Guyanese society played in the matter.
It is now opportune, perhaps to revisit these essays. The first part in the series was published in our Sunday edition. Today we carry Part IV.

Part IV – A Taste of Serbia
IN the annals of crime in Guyana, the activities of Ocean Eleven will have a conspicuous page because of the sadistic nature of their criminal undertakings. Generally, political violence tends to be more ghoulish, barbaric, heinous, sadistic than general criminological violence. Take cult murder. In a majority of cases, cult killings are bestial and gory in their manifestations. The mayhem is usually accompanied by mutilation of body parts, laceration of the throat, disembowelment and smearing of blood at the scene of the crime.

Books used by the black militants are the Bible, one on the philosohpy of Marcus Garvey, and those espousing anti-christ teachings.

Cult murders have an ideological underpinning and for this reason, hate, passion and energy are involved when violence is being applied. The perpetrator is sending a message when he/she kills and is living out his/her ideological beliefs. Normal criminal killings lack this theoretical tone, thus the factor of psychotic impulse is not there. A robber invades a dwelling house and rape, plunder and kill and escapes. Victims usually die because they are either stubborn, aggressive or can identify the attacker.
When  violence is ethnically motivated, it descends to the level of the beast and the atrocity of the murders has uncivilised instincts. A careful examination of all ethnic warfare in history reveals a pattern of horrible, bloodthirsty sadism. People are killed in the most horrific ways that no normal human being can look at without wanting to have some subsequent counselling. The cases are too numerous to mention but recent examples are Rwanda, Sierre Leone, and Bosnia.
We return to the perennial contradiction when analyzing the perverted escapades of Ocean Eleven and its extend network of Buxtonian criminals. If the Buxtonian killers were social misfits who rape, rob and kill, then why the need to discuss their activities within the sociological theory of political violence? I hope my elucidation here puts a final end to this paradox. And that is that – Ocean Eleven was (I hope not “is”) both a criminal and political outfit. Surely this needs explanation. Two compellingly politicized organizations controlled Ocean Eleven. One was the Georgetown based Black extremist, lunatic fringe. Most readers know who they are but we cannot list their names here for obvious reasons. One day outside of Royal Castle restaurant inside of a car, Philip Bynoe, in a friendly tone, yelled out to me: “Freddie, I’m not hearing from you.” I replied that I was not hearing from him. Bynoe advised me to wait and I would see what’s coming. I saw it, indeed. And wrote  about it, and still writing about it.
The other group was the Tshaka Blair-led PLM. The extremist group and the PLM saw in Ocean Eleven political usefulness. Ocean Eleven had no time for the political plans and vision of the two organizations. Here is where an interesting interaction occurred. The extremist cabal and the PLM saw the damage Ocean Eleven could do to help weaken the state.
On the other hand, Ocean Eleven needed the political platform that these two political groups provided. It is in this sense that Ocean Eleven’s activities had a political meaning to it. Another political dimension to Ocean Eleven was the ideological training it received from the PLM and the extremist group. I need to mention something here before I forget and the series ends: One of the most peculiar occurrences in political life in the history of this country relates to Tacuma Ogunseye and a certain talk-show host. This talk-show host was the principal witness at the trial of Tacuma Ogunseye in Burnham’s time. He was jailed for three years and his mother was dragged and humiliated before the courts. I will never forgive this talk-show host for this degradation of Ogunseye’s mother (now deceased). Both Ogunseye and this talk-show host turned up in Buxton as lecturers to the PLM and Ocean Eleven. Life is indeed strange and unpredictable.
The cruelty of Ocean Eleven eventually alienated the villagers who sheltered them and we will come to this part when we look at the eventual collapse of the movement.
For now, an explanation is needed as to the reason for the ferocious and untamed violence they heaped on their Indian victims. The primitive descent of Ocean Eleven, when killing, had two sources – one chemical, the other ideological. Members of the Buxton madness would smoke up their marijuana and cocaine before they went out to rob and kill. Eyewitnesses told me that the “Chip Teeth”-led gang that tried to burn down two gas stations were “totally stoned” and their eyes were redder than red. At the Shell gas station at Camp and New Market Streets, one child soldier kept scratching and throwing the matches on the pump but the matches would not light. A trembling hand and imbalanced mind due to narcotic inhalation saved North Georgetown.
Gang members would come at nights and smoke up on the railway embankment in front of the villagers. The police were banned from the village and Buxton was an East Coast enclave owned by savage criminals. My students told me, Buxtonians would pass the escapees “liming” openly, smoking and “digging” their music. The night of the morning before he died, Dale Moore and a certain lawyer with aspiration to lead a major political party and who pays not even a cent in taxes was conspicuously sporting on the embankment; it was Dale Moore’s birthday. He was drunk when he left Sunday morning for Lamaha Gardens to resume negotiations with Bramma. He died less than fifteen minutes afterwards. At this point I want to offer an apology to Raphael Trotman. In a series on the escapees for Kaieteur News, I alluded to “this lawyer” and it could have pointed in the direction of Mr. Trotman, for whom I have deep respect and who will one day lead the PNC. He is a positive emergence in Guyanese politics.
The drugged child soldiers were wild when they killed Indians. A kidnapped victim was repeatedly sodomised, and carvings were made in his flesh with two hunting knives before he died. Ginga was tortured and the post-mortem showed he was stomped upon with volcanic force. Ginga was an old man. The handicapped Haroon Rasheed screamed as he ran out the house on flames. They followed him out of the house and poured more kerosene on him. Ocean Eleven had a particular habit when they killed Indian businessmen. They liked to use the AK 47 on their victims’ faces.
The ideological dimension of the violence needs no explanation. Ocean Eleven lived out the history lessons that they were taught by the extremist cabal. The Buxtonian invaders disliked Indians to the bone. The hatred had a Nazi-like instinct. The anti-Indian teachings were Hitlerite in their madness. On High Street, a disenchanted member of the PLM said: “Freddie, ah never see so much ignorant people yet.”
The anti-Indian indoctrination had four aspects: (1) Indian people have taken Guyana from Blacks who built it, (2) Indian people are keeping a racist government in power, (3) Indian people have all the wealth, Blacks have none, (4) the crazy Kean Gibson theory of a secret plan to exterminate Blacks in Guyana. From February 2002, Ocean Eleven killed Indians mercilessly. The score sheet is too frightening to look at.