With the advent of globalisation and open market economies, we as a nation have been affected both negatively and positively. Although the positive by far outweighs the negative, we cannot deny the facts that the negative effects are an understandable and necessary baggage, which comes with a global village.

It was seen with the tragic September 11, 2001 incident in New York, USA, when our Tourism Industry, commodity export markets and other related industries were affected negatively with the decrease in demand for our products.

This effect can be termed under a wide heading of economic effects, but what about the social problems, which might result through globalisation in Guyana?

Will we have an upsurge of high technologically advanced crimes followed by an equal degree of police mistrust in criminal elements and criminal neighbourhoods because of the high risk associated to their job?

Could this now lead to police having little reservations in the use of their firearms?

These are all questions sociologist such as Professor Ken Danns should investigate as it relates to perceived incidents of extra judicial killings.

Also, with regard to the extra-judicial killings, one cannot take incidents of the racial makeup of persons killed in isolation like some persons in society are trying to do.

To illustrate this fact, there is a claim of only blacks being killed. This is simply not a fact. The truth of the matter is that only black cases are being publicised by some call-in programmes on television.

The Donna McKinnon case happen on the same day and almost at the exact location where another person, a man of East Indian descendant, was almost shot. I can go on further, but I do not want to operate on a `scorecard basis’ where we count the amount of killings and the race of persons who were killed.

Of course, I am not condoning police killing but merely trying to analyse the situation because that is the way of solving problems. You first have to understand the origin.

We as a society need to move ahead but we cannot do so when we try to create situations in our minds or in other person’s minds in a biased manner.

One must ask one-self what motive will the police force have for killing black men? If as they claim, it is to wipe out the black voting population, how many black men have to be killed per day to achieve this outcome?

But then again, everyday we have others being born who will inevitable replace the population lost, so the population cannot be reduced in this way? Then again, we have black women who can also vote.

Maybe, someone can come up with a better explanation for the perceived black killings.
N. SMITH