FORMER Commissioner of Police, Seelall Persaud has lauded the work of the Guyana Police Force in working to find the perpetrators of the gruesome murders of 16-year-old Isaiah Henry and 18-year-old Joel Henry. The mutilated bodies of the teenaged cousins were found at the backlands of Cotton Tree, West Coast Berbice, last September.

Persaud, in a missive to the media, projected that public criticism will arise, based on the fact that the cases were built primarily on confessions and limited forensic evidence. He sought to remind the critics, however, that during the seven days that followed the discovery of the bodies, the police were prevented from properly processing the scene where the bodies of the boys were found. This was largely owing to a series of violent protests that erupted following the murders.

“That, therefore, would have likely destroyed valuable forensic evidence that may have existed,” Persaud posited, adding: “The circumstances outlined also behove me to recognise the outstanding work of the detectives involved in the investigation, and their leadership, as well as to encourage the Guyana Police Force to work assiduously in closing the trust gap between the organisation and the various communities of Guyana.”

Persaud said that experiences around the world and in Guyana have revealed that public trust in the police serve to reduce the responsiveness of communities to leaders who have ulterior motives.

In his letter, Persaud also pointed to the role of local politicians as it relates to an escalation in the violent protests which ultimately hindered investigations into the murders of the Henry boys.

“A lingering question in the minds of many is what was said to the relatives and sympathisers of the Henry families by the politicians when they visited that caused the intensification of the violence,” Persaud indicated.

As a matter of fact, shortly after members of the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) party visited the communities of the Henry families, violence escalated, prompting founder of Heal Guyana, Sharon Lalljee-Richard, to call out former President, David Granger, and current Opposition Leader, Joseph Harmon, for demonstrating what it called “duplicitous behaviour”.

DOUBLE STANDARDS
The local non-profit organisation, which is known for promoting peace and goodwill across the country, called out the Opposition leaders for their “Double standards” when it comes to race relations and violence in Guyana.

Lalljee-Richard, in her response to the incident, recognised that after just five years of “passionately promoting social cohesion”, the former government officials “took it upon themselves to utter irresponsible words, which served to instigate an outburst of violence among protesters who were demonstrating their discontent over the brutal murders of Isaiah and Joel Henry”.

The People’s National Congress (PNC) had said that Granger and Harmon visited the Henry family to extend sympathy to the bereaved parents on the murder of their sons, Isaiah and Joel Henry, and expressions of comfort and condolences were made privately, indoors, to the boys’ parents and relatives and, in no way, could be interpreted as ‘racial polarisation and attacks’.

Granger, during the visit, was quoted in the media as saying, “We have to establish some self-defence in our society to protect our children, protect our women, our young people. Unless we protect ourselves, nobody is going to protect us.”

WHAT WAS THE THREAT
This statement, referenced by Persaud, prompted the question of what the residents needed to protect themselves from. “President Granger demitted his office as President of Guyana, which he held for five years, one month prior to this incident. What, therefore, was the threat that the residents of the community needed to defend themselves against? Why did he not establish a mechanism to protect them from such threat while he was in office?” the former ‘Top Cop’ queried.

He pointed, too, to the fact that as former Commissioner of Police until his retirement in 2018, he attended the weekly National Security Committee meetings that were chaired by President Granger himself, and that at no time did an issue of security of any community in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) arise. “Consequently, no security threat was defined, and no action plan was developed in the absence of such need,” Seelall Persaud posited.
Further, he said that “Narratives such as race hate and communal conflicts were peddled after the former President’s visits. These narratives ignored facts, and sought to justify the violence.”

Persaud also pointed to the plea of the father of one of the deceased Henry cousins who dispelled assertions that the community was experiencing any such race hate or communal violence.

The former ‘Top Cop’ also questioned whether the violent protests were just a “Continuous trend of election-related violence in which the murders of the Henry cousins were used as a platform to express emotions relating to the outcome of the 2020 elections.” “I allow you to draw your own conclusions in your own time,” Persaud said.