ON a cool and breezy Saturday on Saturday, March 1 in the land of the ruling Cabal, five friends (Yohance Douglas, O’Neil King, Kwesi Heywood, Randolph Goodluck and Ronson Grey) proceeded for a casual drive after basketball practice. They proceeded along the Eastern Highway and ended up at the junction of Sheriff and Bonasika Streets after stopping at Mr Lee’s Mathematics lesson for a check on a family member.

Upon their exit from Bonasika Street, they were stopped by a Green CRV occupied by men with no explicit identification, who instructed them to exit their car. Filled with rage and death on their minds, these rogue, blood-thirsty members of the Guyana Police Force opened fire on the White Toyota Sprinter, PHH 8115 which carried five innocent young, law-abiding Guyanese citizens.

When the gun-powdered smoke had cleared, Yohance Douglas was left with the brunt of the assault. Reports by material eyewitnesses suggest that the rogue policemen rushed Yohance to the hospital after planting a wig in his pants pocket and told the hospital staff that this second-year University of Guyana Architecture student was injured in a shootout during a robbery attempt. The hospital staff, maybe misguided by lies told by the not-so-lawful men, may have disregarded their Hippocratic Oath and delayed treatment.

He subsequently succumbed to spinal injuries and blunt trauma. His life was snuffed out in one fell swoop at the barrel of the gun. He was laid to rest on March 11 at the Beterverwagting burial ground. His death shocked the Guyanese people and some who were imbued with a sense of classism, presumed that model, educated citizens are immune to excesses of the state. This model citizen and exceptional basketball player, prior this deadly encounter, had never even featured in the detention book of St Joseph High during his tenure as a high school student.

The execution of Yohance Douglas was the culmination of a long series of executions that beset a nation filled with ghosts and Phantoms who operated with mortiferous immunity. This can be traced to the post-1992 period with the emergence of the ‘Black clothes’ or ‘Target Squad’. In those days, there was a penchant for small groups of members of the Guyana Police Force who were answerable only to the political directorate.

The first sign that suggested we were in for a long period of extrajudicial killings came in the form of the execution of Jermiane Wilkinson in Albouystown in 1996. This deadly culture was fomented and celebrated by a ruling cabal which embraced the Stalinist ideology of ‘No man, no problem’. However, this column is not seeking to present a treatise on extrajudicial killings in Guyana, while there exists a treasure trove of some 400 cases to do same; this is about Yohance.

Executions and assassinations move history,I hereby posit that Yohance’s execution is an exemplar of this phenomenon. Many University of Guyana students who were revolted by his death,led a movement against these excesses and while justice was not realised,it produced a generation of youth leaders who were determined to change the system. These youth voices craved change and had a visceral opposition to the custodians of the state during this period. These youth leaders, in their post-university lives, continued their activism and will forever carry the unpalatable memory of this execution.