Calling for a resumption of dialogue between the PPP/C and the PNC/R, MPs yesterday condemned the July 3rd attack on the Office of President and the law and order minister signalled that outside interference in the legal cases arising will not be tolerated.
Minister of Home Affairs Ronald Gajraj told Parliament that the rule of law will take its course in the case involving former PNC MP Philip Bynoe who led the protestors who stormed the Office of the President.
Gajraj said that television personality Mark Benschop and Bynoe, who were seen with the protestors on July 3, have embarked on a crusade to involve international organisations based in the country to intervene on their behalf so that the rule of law does not take its course.
Warrants have been issued for their arrest.
Gajraj said he had to say to those people "if they were to get so involved it is a criminal offence because they will seek to pervert the course of justice. And I want that message to go out to all of them." Benschop has told several media houses he wants to surrender in the presence of a UN diplomat and to have him be present while he is interviewed.
Yesterday’s debate in Parliament occurred after Rise, Organise and Rebuild Guyana (ROAR) leader Ravi Dev raised the issue of the July 3rd assault as a definite matter of urgent importance. The National Assembly subsequently agreed to a debate after yesterday’s mid-afternoon recess. Dev during his presentation called for a Commission of Enquiry into the July 3rd invasion and similar disturbances since January 12, 1997.
Much criticism, Gajraj said had been levelled against the police in regard to July 3 but he said the police in their operations are at all times guided by the principle of the use of minimum force. He said that their work was beyond reproach taking into consideration there were a number of international meetings taking place in the country in recent times and criticisms designed to demoralise them. He said the force should be complimented.
Dev said that the enquiry he was proposing must not be based on any "sort of retribution" but for restitution and acceptance that there are problems in the society. There must be acknowledgement that the events occurred, victims must be compensated and there must be reconciliation.
Dev also said that the PNC REFORM (PNC/R), the Guyana Police Force and the government all have to bear some amount of responsibility for the events of July 3, which resulted in the invasion of the Office of the President by protestors, the deaths of two persons and subsequent arson and beating of citizens.
Dev and MPs of the Guyana Action Party/Working People Alliance Sheila Holder and Shirley Melville and The United Force Leader and Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce Manzoor Nadir all joined the PPP/Civic in roundly condemning the invasion of the Office of the President. The major opposition party, the PNC REFORM continued its boycott of Parliament yesterday.
The speakers all called on the opposition PNC/R to reopen dialogue with the PPP/Civic administration to work out differences instead of taking the business of governance on the streets.
The PNC/R, Dev said cannot say it was "some march organised by some People’s Solidarity Movement and by one Bynoe who might be or not be a member of the PNC." The PNC/R, he said, was integrally involved in mobilising for the protest march according to the party’s Chairman Robert Corbin, Dev said.
Stating that "we are all up in arms at the storming of the Office of the President which embodies executive power and which symbolises the power of the state, Dev said that to attack such an office is to actually attack the foundations of the state. At the same time he said that the National Assembly cannot dismiss the brutality meted out to ordinary citizens that day because the state is founded by those same people.
He said that Members of Parliament therefore have to speak out at the brutality meted out to the citizens of Guyana, Indian citizens who happen to be in the wrong place at the time.
However, he said it was not only the PNC but the police force which allowed the march to get into the city and at the time when the CARICOM Heads of Government were meeting even though permission was not granted. The police escort of the march, too, he said, gave the impression that all was safe and Indian citizens particularly believed they were safe to come to Georgetown.
The administration, too, he said bears some responsibility for what occurred since it was aware that individuals in the society had been openly calling for the overthrow of the government at a time when people were being killed by bandits. The administration, he said failed to put laws in place to broaden the powers of the security forces to deal with domestic terrorism.
He said that if after 28 years of rule under the PNC, 42% of the population still feel marginalised under the PPP/Civic government, the government needs some new principled framework allowing that percentage of people to have a stake in the country.
In his remarks, Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy said that he was angry and disappointed at what occurred saying that there was terrorism in this country and the only way to stop it was for every decent Guyanese to admit there was domestic terrorism and there was "absolutely no justification for it."
However he called on the PNC/R to reopen the dialogue with the PPP/Civic.
He said it has worked before and it was the only way to go. Stating that dialogue could be excruciatingly painful he asked, if no dialogue then what? He recalled that when the PNC/R and the PPP/Civic started the dialogue process over a year ago everyone in the country breathed a sigh of relief. The dialogue was suspended by the PNCR because it was unhappy with the pace of implementation of the things agreed by President Bharrat Jagdeo and PNC/R Leader Desmond Hoyte.
Ramsammy spoke of the PPP/Civic being very compromising to the opposition PNC/R even giving up half of its term in 1997 in the interest of the country.
In her brief presentation, Holder, who had boycotted the budget debate and was subsequently on leave from the National Assembly said that it was clear there was a breakdown of law and order and a total disregard for the symbols of authority in society. Many of the crimes have exceeded the description of heinous, the suffering of victims is unimaginable, the powerlessness of the population is evident and the disciplined services’ response was ineffective to date.
She said leaders were condemning the acts of atrocities committed by criminal elements while ignoring the causes of crime.
These causes she said were visible for all who have eyes to see. There were many she said who feel that the political situation has failed them. She implored the major opposition party and the government to stop fiddling with the lives of people.