By Festus L. Brotherson, Jr.
Guyana Chronicle
June 17, 2001

THE issues of Tim McVeigh's execution in the USA last week, the ongoing complaints about extra-judicial killings by the Guyana Police Force (GPM), and all of this in the context of clever and the intricate democratic politics, make for provocative analysis.

What emerges is an interesting equi-poised status quo between the ruling PPP/C and the main opposition PNC/R in Guyana as the politics of their collaboration by way of six bipartisan committees unfolds.

In the main, however, the playing out of both issues offer valuable insights into the power of the state and the constant challenge of curbing and balancing it according to citizenry dictates. It becomes clear that this constancy of challenge for curbs as well as for strict application of the rule of law is necessary for the preservation of democracy and advancement of justice.

But there is a serious contradiction of the principle in Guyana that might be unfair to the besieged police force under Commissioner Laurie Lewis.

A tremendous hubbub of annoyed, reluctant agreement in the USA erupted when convicted Oklahoma bomb terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, got a one month stay of execution by lethal injection when it was revealed

that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had failed to turn over to McVeigh's lawyers some four thousand pages of evidence not used in the trial.

Under the rules of American jurisprudence, in order to mount the best defence, defendants have the right to all evidence prosecutors have against them. The four thousand pages did not contain any exculpatory materials and McVeigh had already confessed to the killing of the 168 people who had died in the 1995 bomb blast. Notwithstanding that, the rules had to be scrupulously followed. Rule of law and procedures governing it were sacrosanct.

Another reason for postponement involved clever democratic politics. McVeigh had asked for the delay and his whole rationale for being a "soldier" and declaring "war" against the US involved accusing the government of conspiracy to weaken the sovereignty of the American state and its citizens in furtherance of the cause of "world government."

The reasoning was anchored in the oddball ideology of the militia groups that sprang up coterminous with the deepening, a few years ago, of globalisation imperatives in the USA that appeared to augur ill for American culture and the country's wage earners. Being expedient and denying McVeigh's request for a stay would play into his hands and probably make him a martyr among the now largely splintered militia groups.

Thus, following the rule of law would not only reaffirm its sanctity, it would also make the eventual execution of the terrorist legalised in an exemplary, sanitary, by-the-book manner. This is exactly what happened, the stay was granted, and requests for a longer one were denied then abandoned by McVeigh himself. He was then executed.

In the days leading up to his execution, what was obvious and frightening to some was how precise and deliberate were the bureaucratic rules, and how exactly implemented they were every step of the way.

These involved the condemned prisoner being moved from death row to the execution chamber at a legally prescribed time, selection of witnesses, anonymity of executioners, right to make a last statement, selection of final meal, etc. As the process unfolded, the absolute power and exclusive right of the state to kill was reaffirmed much to the chagrin of groups opposed to the death penalty. No other institution has this power to take a life legally and that is one reason why the state, despite growing challenges to its authority domestically and externally due to globalisation, is still defined as the most powerful organisation ever developed by the human mind to provide a fair context for the living of life and pursuit of one's will.

Opposers of the death penalty believe that this awesome power no longer belongs in advanced democracies where people are highly civilised.

Meanwhile, in Guyana, there was outrage - once again- at the police force for the shooting deaths of four persons (over two weeks) wanted in connection with crimes.

The police themselves suffered the slaying of one of their own in a movie-style killing last week when a suspect seized an officer's gun and shot him point blank at a station just outside Georgetown.

This incident followed closely the shooting to death by the police of an East Indian citizen in the `Ancient County' of Berbice during a large-scale Easy Indian protest at the undermanned Albion police station over police inability to prevent crime and capture criminals.

And similar complaints about trigger-happy police have dominated the news for years now even though it was thought that things had been improving for a while until the unprecedented violence following the March 19, 2001 national elections.

In the ceaseless political rallies, demonstrations, and street marches organiaed by the PNC/R, the police have also been often accused of brutality in the use of excessive force. Here, again, however, the wider contrary view that appears more saleable is that officers have acted with restraint and professionalism most of the time in the face of extreme provocation including violence against them.

This is especially true with regard to the violent protests, including bombings, beatings and arson around Georgetown, and along the East Coast of Demerara as far as Belladrum.

Upon sober reflection, it appears as if the beleaguered police cannot win for trying. The Commissioner has been the favourite target of the PNC/R at every opportunity whenever some misstep or mishap befalls the force; so much so that it often escapes people's memory that Mr. Lewis had been appointed to his job during the PNC government's tenure. For his professionalism during the 1992 elections that brought the PPP/C to power, the Jagan governments trusted and retained him. And so has President Bharrat Jagdeo. Lewis has also been serving beyond the retirement age limit.

The police force is often outgunned by criminal elements whose recourse to advanced weaponry is troubling. The force is often undermanned, under equipped and underpaid. This contributes to problems of morale and corruption. The job is also very dangerous in a society that is increasingly becoming more and more violent. Police culture (the world over) tends towards a strong code of silence bonding and special loyalties that trigger harsh responses when one of their own is slain in the line of duty. One recent fatal shootings should also be seen in this light along with the heavy stresses unique to the Guyana force. This, of course, does not excuse extra-judicial killings.

PNC/R Leader Desmond Hoyte's first response to recent killings was to offer sympathy and express harsh outrage on the death of the criminals. Only later did he offer sympathy on the killing of the

police officer. This calls to mind quirky behaviour in his attendance of Blackie's funeral where the slain outlaw was treated as a hero.

Can these political sympathies and the PNC/R own penchant violent law-breaking be encouraging criminal behaviour; especially since the PNC/R has been itself guilty of signaling approval of behavior during protests? The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) was critical of the main opposition party along some of these lines in its media release about the killings. The opposition leader might wish to rethink tactics. The government's response to Mr. Hoyte's very harsh criticism was moral outrage in a scalding Office of the President press release.

The police also won strong support from the mayor of Georgetown Hamilton Green who was once prime minister in the Hoyte government. There is no doubt, however, that there is growing national disquiet at what appears to be increasing abuse of police power.

Compounding matters is the fact that many lawbreakers are often never caught despite the best police efforts. For example, the recent murders of three East Indians males, including one boy, remains unsolved. So does the killing of a Black mother of teenagers, Donna McKinnon. Both incidents appear to have been motivated by racial anger. Beyond that, the crime rate in Guyana is extremely high and citizens' first action is usually to call upon the police. The same citizenry is making clear, however, that even though they need the police, they do not condone abuse of power in the performance of their duties.

Reasonably, this is how it must be in any democracy.

All states need the police as enforcement arms of the law. In democracies, they operate under conditions that provide strict accountability and review processes through both their own internal structures as well as citizen commissions. This assures less episodes of flagrant abuse of power. The truth is that people both need and fear police for what they represent.

The first order of business in any state is for the government to provide citizens with a fear-free orderly environment so that life can be lived normally. Police are given wide powers to assure this result and the maintenance of order. The court system, the army and mental asylums also provide this function.

Some thinkers have argued that police must be granted strong powers to be effective. Citizens must fear the law in order to obey it, but where the law is silent, citizens are free. Where there is no fear of the law, there will be more and more lawlessness and the possibility of eventual anarchy. In one African country, it used to be that police could flog errant motorists on the spot with bamboo canes for breaches of the traffic laws.

And thus it is that some societies measure people's freedom according how few laws are necessary. It is given then that people need the police and for that agency to be effective they must have power of enforcement sufficient enough to cause fear among potential lawbreakers and to enhance obedience.

But people also believe that if not monitored, the very necessary power granted to police can be abused to an extent that contracts, shrinks and lessens individual freedoms. For citizens of democracies, this is intolerable and explains the accountability and review process avenues that are zealously guarded.

It is recognised that if police are given carte blanche or loosely supervised powers, citizens might awake one day to find themselves residents of a police state and not a democracy.

There is also a vexing paradox that governs police power. It involves the expanse of freedoms in a democratic state. The more democratic a society becomes, the more are new freedoms demanded and old ones expanded. The latter is particular true with regard to the number of working days and vacations to which people have a right. New freedoms are usually demanded with the arrival of new technologies. The development of the Internet, for example, has spawned the new laws to deal with the birth of new freedoms of expression and freer ways of doing business. This duality has always occasioned disquiet among citizens - even and particularly in advanced democracies. The new technologies can be used by government and police to curb freedoms just as much as people wish to use them for more expanding freedoms, e.g., the development of DNA technology.

In short, democratic states will always use built-in correctives that tend automatically to prevent the system from becoming anarchic or authoritarian. It is usually calibrated to allow staying in a more middling sway between the two extremes.

Balancing state power: unfair restrictions on the Presidency

Part II of II

Main points from last week: in democracies, the enormity and necessity of state power frightens citizens into constantly curbing and balancing it to prevent abuse of people's individual freedoms by the state - paradoxically in the context of unrelieved lawbreaking and introduction of expanded freedoms by way of heightened democratic consciousness and/or introduction of new technologies; the execution of Tim McVeigh in the advanced USA democracy demonstrates the awesome finality of state power applied by strict bureaucratic rules; this desire for curbs and strict rules is unfair to the Guyana Police Force (GPF) because the principle is being applied in a fragile democracy under siege in which rules are now being debated and enshrined, and in which bureaucracies are weak and manipulable; making the situation in Guyana critical is the current equi-poised status quo between the ruling PPP/C and the main opposition PNC/R where democratic interplay for policy influence takes place under conditions of crisis; relatedly, the GPF and Commissioner Laurie Lewis have become the PNC/R's hobbyhorse for protesting extra-judicial killings and other alleged abuse of power.

CONFLICTING forces in our embryonic democracy are producing tensions for which we do not yet have the capacity to respond satisfactorily. Ignoring this dynamic, and only being concerned with individual rights, is to emasculate the very democratic institutions we are building and reinforcing against a contemporary historical backdrop of unbridled authoritarianism that made them weaker than they were at political independence.

One such institution is the Guyana Police Force (GPF). Another is the presidency (although this institution became too powerful).

The result is dissatisfaction in the form of people's embrace of expanded freedoms being shackled by the government's inability to cope as fast and as extensively as citizens would like. Put another way, we have now a meteoric rise in people's expectations and demands that outstrips government's capacity to fulfill those expectations successfully.

But inability to perform is only partially the administration's fault. Overwhelming reasons involve scarce human and financial resources that have to be prioritised for use in a context of major competing interests - all of which fiercely demand the "democratic right" of address and redress.

This is the sort of challenge that routinely spurs regression to authoritarianism because it is always easier to rule by dictate than by the complex web of coalition and consensus-building that democratic governance requires.

Let us examine some of the interplay that produces the dynamics just outlined.

Mr. Petamber Persaud, who got it right in his letter to the Stabroek News of June 22, 2001 in which, after praising the vibrant democratic spirit in the land, he cautioned: "...checks and balances are welcomed but too many checks may overbalance the equation."

Excellently, this captures the political dilemma that our opinion leaders need to address more scrutinously. As was pointed out last week, advanced democracies have over time developed internal correctives that trigger proper balancing between state authority and people's individual freedoms.

However, this takes much time to work well.

In Guyana, against a backdrop of rampant violent crime, and in the context of a rising din of demands for its amelioration and for this and that service by all sorts of interest groups, and as democratic consciousness increases and new (for Guyana) technologies are introduced, e.g., computers, there has arisen an extraordinarily zealous watchdog-type examination of every deed or intention of the government.

Why?

People are trying to ensure that democratic rules, tenets, principles are strictly adhered to and not breached. It is a level of excellence sought that derives from comparing neophytic, democratic Guyana to the advanced USA democracy. For example, one complainer recently called for "confirmation hearings" to approve judicial appointments.

This is far removed from how such appointments are supposed to be made under the Westminster system. On the other hand, it works in the USA, is very time-consuming, and leads to political gridlock.

Part of the rationale for this upsurge in particularistic, microscopic monitoring that so often over-reaches in a search for good governance, has to do with distrust of government in general. Put another way, Guyanese are so frustrated with past governments over four decades, that they are articulating and seeking to institutionalize democratic procedures without first assuring that proper institutions exist in the first place.

In fact, institutions are usually under-funded, understaffed, and technically unequipped with basics such as transportation, fax machines, etc., to perform acceptably.

The recent furor over President Jagdeo's remarks is instructive. The president said he intended to transfer police ranks from rural Albion where demonstrators, protesting lack of security in the area, almost overran the police station. The force there was under-funded, understaffed and unequipped to perform effectively. The criticisms of the president were so swift in coming as to be mind-boggling; as if the intention was to emasculate the Guyana presidency!

Mr. Jagdeo, screamed critics, was usurping police functions! Only the police commissioner could transfer ranks. Apparently, Mr. Jagdeo had forgotten to mention that he had earlier discussed the intended transfer with his police chief. But what was the context of his action?

It was one of exploding crime where residents were invoking a performance imperative by demanding instant remedial action from the president. Earlier, incensed crowds had roughed up his ministers and other representatives who had rushed to the area to mollify feelings. This was in fact a full-blown crisis. People wanted dramatic change. The president responded. But those seeking to strengthen democracy through careful monitoring provided criticisms that only further demoralised the police and almost prevented the president from taking swift action.