Body politic and body parts

The Freddie Kissoon Column - Posted May 7th. 2008

The body politic of this country has been put under severe strain since the advent of self rule in the fifties. The process has never stopped. Since the year 2008, the relentlessness of the pressure from violent gunmen has called into question the competence of the government to stem the tide of violent brutality.

Few believe that the fabric of the Guyanese society could withstand another Lusignan or Bartica. Now that question needs no debating with the way the body parts of Mr. Mohamed Farouk Kalamadeen, were disposed off.

For a majority of Guyanese with no interest in political studies or sociology, they know that the body parts abomination has a story behind it and the manner of the disposal of the lower and upper parts of this man’s physical remains was intended to send a message.

One cannot be that stupid (and perhaps a stronger word should be used) to think that the site where the headless corpse was found has no implications. The perimeters where the security forces are based are areas where no sane person wants to be seen lurking.

Why would anyone attempt to steal a car in the dead of the night in the vicinity where the security forces can be found? Commonsense would tell the thief that there would be comparatively, more advantageous places.

Where the police live and work is an area where the possibility is stronger that you may encounter an officer of the law. A simple example should drive home the point. If you are riding your bike and feel like cussing down to the top of your voice, then if you pass Eve Leary doing that, chances are an officer on duty will hear you and haul you in. So why pass Eve Leary?

The people that tossed Mr. Kalamdeen’s decapitated body in close physical proximity to the perimeters of the Kingston operations of the Guyana Police Force wanted to taunt the law.

They didn’t care about the eerie hour that they roamed about near to where police offices live and work. The intention was to let the police know that the planners of the murder could operate on any turf they wanted.

Then there is the case of the head. It is possible that it was placed directly outside the business place of Mr. Kalamadeen and the water caused it to drift a block away? Again we see a message behind the action. In such weird circumstances, there can be endless speculation. Whatever conclusions we arrive at, the gruesome nature of the murder and body parts disposal should lead us to think that Guyana’s stability is in serious jeopardy; more than ever before.

Two issues are up for automatic discussion. One is the competence of the government to confront a monstrous crime situation. In this connection, the question of forensic science comes up. The other is the inevitable political mileage the Government seeks to get out of every tragedy in this country.

Last year, when Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee announced an increase in the resources the Government will provide to the security forces, the press asked him about a forensic lab for the Guyana Police Force. He promptly dismissed its relevance.

I remember doing a column on his refusal to acknowledge the importance of such a pathway and I made the point that it confirms the incompetent leadership we have in this country. It needs no elaborate discussion; forensic science is to date, the most effective tool in crime solution.

It has become to the police what a cell phone is to a modern person on the move in today’s rushed world that we live in.

One of the great things about forensic science it how the most infinitesimal speck of evidence cannot escape the eyes of the microscope. Let us say in a murder, a struggle preceded the killing. A single strand of hair on the victim can lead to a positive identification of the killer. The DNA test has now replaced the indispensability of the fingerprint.

Is it possible that the people who decapitated Mr. Kalamadeen have passed through the courts before; maybe several times? It is possible that tiny specks of evidence on Mr. Kalamdeen’s clothes could tell us how the conspiracy to murder him took shape. All of this is lost because the Guyana Police Force does not have a forensic lab. Jamaica and Barbados are employing this kind of science in their police work. Trinidad of course is the leader of this type of police technique in the Caricom region.

The leaders of the Government resent when the media evaluates their inability to develop Guyana, but in a country where people are living in pessimistic hopelessness about the inexorable climb of crime, we spend money on international events that bring in not one cent to help poverty alleviation. And that money could go to the setting up of a medical lab for the GPF. Finally, it was totally out of place for Minister Rohee to opine that the attack on the East La Penitence Police Station may be connected to the PNC’s intention to wreck CARIFESTA.

It was expected of course – the politicization of everything by the PPP Government. Remember President Jagdeo, shortly after the Lusignan Holocaust, is quoted in the press as saying that there are political actors who say they can stop the killings if they are allowed into a power-sharing exercise.

Minister Rohee can make that irresponsible statement and the major stakeholders will refuse to confront him on its insensitive content. As Guyana gets more mired down in nihilistic violence, the society becomes ever more silent.

Where is the AFC?

The Freddie Kissoon Column - Posted April 23rd. 2008

I went to the meeting of the PNC outside of Parliament last Friday, which was the culmination of the march to protest chiefly the four-month suspension imposed on the licence of CNS Channel 6. My preference was for a wider protest action that would have included the TUC, AFC, WPA, GHRA and others.

I spoke to Michael Carrington of the AFC two days before the march to inquire of the AFC’s participation. He told me that they would have a presence in the parade. If there was such a presence, I did not see it outside Parliament.

The persistent failure of civil rights groups and opposition parties to enhance their working relationships to stem the expansion of authoritarian power is indeed lamentable. These organisations do not seem to realize that the slower the pace in establishing a relationship, the quicker the people of Guyana are getting turned off with the politics of protest. It is a depressing situation in Guyana.

We are living in uncertain times and people are unsure of what lies ahead. In trying situations, where governments lack hope and vision -- as we clearly see in Guyana -- it is natural for the populace to turn to civil rights groups and opposition parties.

It is this factor that explains the Obama phenomenon. Americans, especially the young, feel that politicians have let them down, and they want a radically new agenda. Mrs. Clinton appears a cut above the conservative contestants to them, but they prefer a complete break with the past. They see in Obama a chance of America renewing itself. We have an identical situation in Guyana.

The implosion in the PNC did not help the optimism of the Guyanese people. On the contrary, it deepened their pessimism and cynicism about hope. It was in fact a pitiful sight to see a PNC gathering that did not include half of the PNC’s strategic thinkers. Alexander, Lowe, McAllister and others from Team Alexander were not there. The attendance was impressive, given the political frustration of the masses, but had the PNC been a united party the figures could have been far more elegant.

There can hardly be any question about the dilemmas that now characterize the PNC. The present leadership of the party has literally degutted the organization by virtually excluding the membership of Team Alexander from the physiology of the PNC. A weak PNC was still able to successfully mount a positive march against bad governance in Guyana last Friday. The immediate concern was the four-month suspension of the CNS 6 licence. This suspension has attracted a sympathizer in columnist Rickey Singh, who wrote in his Sunday Chronicle corner that the length of suspension was unduly harsh and should be revisited.

The speakers on Friday, however, touched on what they consider were other violations of the PPP Government.

As the Government’s authoritarian behaviour gets more vicious, this country cries out for opposition unity. My theory about the 2006 elections was that if there was a non-PNC coalition, the PPP would have lost a majority in Parliament. I believe if there was a PNC under a new person the PNC would have pulled more votes. This country is paying a sad price for that tragic failure.

I have postulated the theory in this column that the unanticipated Parliamentary majority of the PPP has had profound psychological effects on the PPP and Mr. Jagdeo. What this has done is to reinforce the myth of Freedom House that the PPP is invincible. The consequence of this is the fuller show of arrogance, deepening of autocracy, and the bold attempt to confront critics and detractors of the Guyana Government with a determination that reminds us of a statement by Forbes Burnham; “our steel is sharper.”

In the midst of this crisis, one has to ask where is the second major party, the AFC? Surely, it must have occurred to the AFC that Mr. Corbin has to recover lost ground. If and when he does, it will be a challenge to the AFC. The PNC under Mr. Corbin has begun that challenge, both to the AFC and to the Jagdeo presidency. There was a march, a protest meeting, a petition to the CARICOM Secretariat, and a demonstration outside the Office of the President. Is this the beginning of Mr. Corbin's resuscitation of “slo fyaah/mo fyaah?”

From listening to him last Friday, he sounded less conciliatory than he ever did since succeeding Mr. Hoyte. Last year he warned those who were agitating for street action that once he took to the street, he wasn’t coming off. Are we about to see a reinvigorated PNC?

Still, there is a question that has to be answered: where is the AFC in the present political morass? There is a crisis of governance in Guyana. It has manifested itself in two forms. One is the hardening of the autocratic instinct of the rulers. From the 2006 national elections onward, there is a relentless pursuit of goals by the political elites that have taken very little recognition of the Constitution, the rule of law, the conventions of observing traditional moral principles in the exercise of power, and the law of political decency.

The list includes this month’s action against CNS 6; the disregard for the opposition amendment to the motion in Parliament dealing with the stakeholders’ deliberations; the confrontation with the Speaker of the National Assembly; the Oliver Hinckson saga, and the BellGate controversy.

In all of this one has to ask: where is the AFC? It must have dawned upon the AFC by now that it cannot bring out the numbers like the PNC, but it is morally obligatory of the AFC leadership that it must constantly demonstrate a pronounced presence in the political sociology of Guyana.

Maybe it is time the AFC contacts Eusi Kwayana in California for some advice on how to fight an authoritarian government. I hope the AFC realizes that national elections are just two and a half years away.