IN the late 90s, with cooperation from the Prison Management , I conducted a self-sponsored Art course that resulted in two inmates proceeding to institutions of higher learning and another branching off to perfect his unique skills of model-building, while yet another is now an ardent producer of craft products. I had also written to the then Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj on behalf of an inmate whom I knew was constantly in prison before I had left school as a teenager, for ridiculous offences. A representative from the ministry visited me during class, I think his name was Mr. Green; however, with the support of Mr. Dale Erskine the then Director of Prisons, this inmate was released. He did begin to pursue an Art career, but I advised him to get a job and develop his skill in his spare time. This he did and as far as I know, he held on to his job and was still employed a few years ago when I saw him. That course could not have happened without the vision of Mr. Erskine and his team that included Mr. Howard. These men were even in 1997-98 faced with severe problems, which only the unwilling State could initiate solving. They were forced to deploy female guards where only males were deployed before, cells designed for three inmates were now housing four and five prisoners. Though prisoners would ascend to the roof in protest at the very long waits for trial among other contentions, the PPP remained unmoved. Andrew Douglas, one of the famous 2002 jailbreak inmates became popular before the jailbreak because of his jail roof protests. It was then Clement Rohee following Gajraj who remarked in response to requests from stakeholders and the British High Commissioner for reforms at the Brickdam lockups and the Georgetown Prison, that “Where do they think they are, a five- star hotel?” This was said after the 2002 Mash Day jailbreak, an asinine statement after a macabre precedent. The British High commissioner did eventually in 2007 present the prison authorities with a 5,000-pound cheque, but the problem had long extended far beyond the parameters of that good intention.
In my article on Sunday 6, March in the Guyana Chronicle, I outlined the collapse and decimation of mass semi-skilled muscle-based employment centres in Georgetown, between 1987 to 1991, and when the PPP came to power in 1992, they ignored those social traumas and out of political spite they further destroyed the National Service, a powerful training centre that provided skills training for thousands of Guyanese youth. Imagine Clement Rohee today, does not know that the Timehri Prison from its inception in the early 70s was designed as a young- offender facility and thinks that he is now suggesting it. The PPP is a 1960s political fossil, and its propaganda arm was effective in carrying out its bottom-house philosophies. Foremost in 2013-14 was the ‘Sultan Mohamed group’ that consisted of Ravi Dev and other senior party members. In the ‘Sultan Mohamed’ letter of Thursday April 17, 2014 titled: “Prisons, cemeteries, garbage and Mashramani should be privatised,” quote: “Afro-Guyanese flock to fill Guyanese Jails, and they also currently manage its daily affairs. Who is best equipped to make it a business venture?” – “ If perchance a predominant Afro-Guyanese company ventures into running the prisons, will they be more successful in dissuading kith and kin from going back to jail repeatedly?” unquote. This letter was pure malice and hatred; incidentally, Ravi Dev was Donald Ramotar’s hopeful as commissioner to the Ethnic Relations Commission, that he Ramotar never swore in. If the propaganda arm articulated a common PPP contempt for the responsibility of prison reform in Georgetown, then it would be rational to say that the very similar PPP neglect of the city coincides with the consistent, small- minded attitude of spiting the constituency that rejected them with good reason, politically. Why was Gladwin Samuels retained under the PPP after interdicted for a past serious incident? The PPP’s habit of retaining fallen personalities as indebted souls to deploy when necessary has always led to dire circumstances.
Regards
Barrington Braithwaite