THE Guyana Police Force deserves to be commended for its very principled and forthright challenge for any Guyanese to immediately desist from engaging in dangerous politics designed to spread racial violence, particularly in the absence of offering ANY information that could be helpful to their efforts in the maintenance of Law and Order.

We refer specifically to the appeal that has come from Assistant Commissioner (Law Enforcement), Mr Leslie James, as reported in various sections of the media including this newspaper. The warning was addressed specifically to the well-known United States-based Guyanese-born academic and political activist of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), Dr David Hinds, against the stirring of political mischief over the murder of Courtney Crum-Ewing on March 10.
Since he was ruthlessly gunned down, the focus of media coverage has been on Crum-Ewing’s recent public one-man picket demonstration with an anti-government slogan. Prior to that incident, Crum-Ewing was never known to have been involved or associated with any unlawful activities, political or otherwise.
Thankfully, the GPF have, under the years of successive PPP/C democratic administrations, maintained a rule-of-law focus, one that sharply contrast with what prevailed under PNC-led regimes.
Guyanese, at home and abroad, including the WPA’s Dr Hinds, would be aware of the disturbing examples that surfaced last year in the still continuing independent Commission of Inquiry into the assassination of the internationally famous Guyanese historian and WPA co-leader, Dr Walter Rodney.
We recall in particular how high-powered guns were DELIVERED by army personnel to the PNC. Where are those guns?
It is, therefore, simply politically shocking and sinful for Dr Hinds, who once made good use of his known intellectual skills to stir hopes for ethnic unity and national progress, to now degenerate into sheer political wickedness, under the guise of an “intellectual” intervention.

Worse, to do so amid the strenuous efforts by the Guyana Police Force to bring to justice those who President Donald Ramotar recently describes as the “killers” and “intellectual authors” of Crum-Ewing.
Evidently quite disturbed how political mischief makers and their collaborators in the media are currently involved in spreading not just anti-government propaganda, but stirring disunity to provoke violence ahead of the coming May 11 elections, President Ramotar has now disclosed his intention to pursue all appropriate initiatives to combat the misuse of the media to spread race hate and mischief that could have costly negative consequences.
Specifically, as outlined in his official statement, President Ramotar has promised to pursue initiatives from both legal and moral perspectives, to prevent the spread of falsehood against individuals, political parties, organisations and the government itself that could result in physical harm, or worse (murder?).
Those elements who seem bent on creating political mischief, racial disunity and disrupt peaceful social and economic development, should pay careful attention to the resolve of the Guyana Police Force as reflected in Friday’s statement to the media.