Human rights body urges witnesses to shooting of young men to give statements
Calls for efficient probe
Stabroek News
March 5, 2003

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The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) is encouraging all witnesses to the shooting incident last Saturday when a police patrol opened fire on a group of young men in a car to accept the appeal of the Commissioner of Police to come forward and make statements in order to expedite the legal investigation.

Further, the human rights body says that that the credibility of the Guyana Police Force requires that an efficient criminal investigation of the incident should be pursued and charges laid according to the severity the evidence demands.

A GHRA release states that since prima facie evidence suggests criminal behaviour and not simply police misconduct, the human rights body is not satisfied with the proposal to involve the Police Complaints Authority in the matter.

The release says also that apart from the track record of the PCA, it has no mandate for criminal investigation and such a role could be open to legal challenge.

The GHRA is also contending that “while the issue of extra-judicial killings takes its toll on the credibility of the Police Force, responsibility for the larger picture of crime and policing does not rest solely with the GPF.”

According to the human rights body, the “inability of the major political parties to place the national interest before their narrow partisan pettiness prevents appointment of a Police Commis-sioner, implementation of reforms in the Police Force and creation of a national body to develop and implement a national policy on crime and security.” And the absence of a viable Parliament is a major obstacle to addressing these issues, the GHRA adds.

Addressing the issue of extra-judicial killings, GHRA posited that the killing of Shaka Blair at Buxton appeared to have sparked the wave of crime and violence the country has endured for the past year. During that time, the release noted, some twenty police officers have been deliberately targeted for execution.

Continued failure to address extra-judicial killings will consume the Guyana Police Force as a whole in terms of demoralisation, resignations, desertions and lack of capable recruits, the human rights body says.

And it asserts that “public sympathy over the killing of police officers is persistently diluted by events such as this unprovoked shooting of youths in a car.”

Meanwhile, the GHRA is calling on the Government to urgently issue a public reassurance that it is implementing the reforms of the Police Force it had announced some time ago.

In particular, evidence must be provided that the Government has finally accepted that levels of extra-judicial killings by the police “are unacceptable and that the Target Special Squad has been disbanded.”

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