PRESIDENT David Granger on Friday said it would have been impossible for any society to have survived the crime wave during 2000 to 2009, which Guyana endured without suffering a “secondary impact” – the after effects.During the period referred to, the bandits, “the phantom force” and rogue policemen caused many deaths; too many to be easily forgotten, the President said.

He disclosed that the violence perpetrated by rogue policemen under the pretext of conducting investigations, when in fact there was only intimidation, has left permanent scars.

“The arbitrary arrests, unwarranted detentions, deliberate shootings, torture, and sham inquiries have had a cumulative, corrosive “secondary impact” on society,” he told a two-day forum on domestic violence at the Marriott Hotel.

According to Mr Granger, many failed to comprehend how violent the drug war had become; to fathom the repercussions of the prolonged violence which claimed the lives of an unprecedented and still undetermined, number of policemen and youths.

The then opposition members of the National Assembly had compiled a “Dossier in Support of an Independent Legal Interrogation of Grave Human Rights Abuses in Guyana” on state-sponsored violence and other crimes.

They, too, tried to comprehend the enormity of this terrible human tragedy.

The former administration had refused even to conduct inquests into the assassinations of its own Minister of Agriculture at La Bonne Intention; of the head of the Police Force’s Target Special Squad on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway; of the deputy head of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit in Buxton and of the attempted assassination of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Kitty.

Mr Granger also pointed out that the former administration had also refused to conduct inquiries into the massacres in Agricola, Bagotstown-Eccles, Bartica, Bourda, Campbellville, Kitty, Lamaha Gardens, Lindo Creek, Lusignan and elsewhere.

The President disclosed that a generation of Guyanese – which was an unwilling witness to criminal violence – has now grown up.

“The agony, anger and alienation caused by violence against citizens, especially the innocent and the young, still simmer. The crimes have not been explained. The memories have not been erased,” he said, pointing out that some communities — at Bartica, Buxton and Kingston —have become so unsettled by the violence that they have erected monuments to the victims.

He noted that the troubles, no doubt, was the consequence of a high-level condonation of, or complicity with, the rise of drug cartels and the importation of illegal narcotics and weapons.

These crimes brought an unprecedented wave of criminal violence into this country during the first decade of this century. The consequence of this narcotics trade, particularly, has been a bloody battle to extend drug empires and to eliminate anyone who resisted them.

The seminar tackling domestic violence in Guyana was chaired by acting Chief Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards.

Acting Chancellor of the Judiciary Carl Singh said the forum’s target groups include magistrates, police officers, welfare officers and prosecutors to deal justly with matters of domestic violence.

He found it laudable that senior government functionaries by their public pronouncements have shown concern in addressing domestic violence, but said to a large extent, society blames men solely for being the perpetrators.

But men are also victims, he said. The justice said education is vital to addressing the problem, which remains an uphill task.

The forum was also addressed by Mark Guthrie of the Commonwealth Secretariat.