The allegations concerning a death squad have brought this society to yet another standstill. At their heart is the charge that the squad had state sponsorship at some level, which if true, is no small accusation. It is the kind of imputation which in more normally structured democracies would have caused a government to act with dispatch against whichever of its members was enveloped in the cloud of suspicion. The fear that the administration as a whole could be contaminated by such allegations would have constituted sufficient incentive for quick action.
But not here. In this country the government has proved impervious to whatever evidence has been placed in the public domain, and has made statements on the subject which in some instances border on the obtuse. It has, in other words, behaved in a way which sends the message that it has something to hide. But this is not the total explanation. At the back of its obstinacy there is something else as well in operation - and that is the feeling of injustice. There has been no reckoning for the PNC in terms of its behaviour over many years, and now, after the ruling party attempted to respond to an 'evil' - albeit with another 'evil' - it is the one whose actions the opposition is demanding be the subject of an independent inquiry.
Of course, the PNCR will retort that the PPP/C is the party which came into office trumpeting the cause of the rule of law and accountability in government, and that it is therefore only being held to account by its own publicly declared standards. It will also argue - not without some merit - that the government during the Buxton crisis made no attempt to deploy the resources of the state at its disposal in a meaningful way, and by simple inaction allowed the situation to escalate.
Furthermore, it could point out - also not without justification - that from the beginning of its tenure in office, the governing party seriously mishandled the matter of the security services, placing all its reliance on the forerunners of the death squad, i.e., the 'Black Clothes' police. And while the government was seeking backing from the PNCR on the Buxton issue in 2002, it was nevertheless adamant for many months about not disbanding the 'Black Clothes,' thereby precluding any hope of opposition support.
But - and it is a big but - while all this is true to a greater or lesser degree, there is still a sense of historical injustice. Not just in relation to the current circumstances mentioned above, but also in relation to earlier times, when the PPP resorted to extra-legal methods generally only in response to similar methods employed against it or its supporters. It is only very recently, for example, that the PNC has publicly acknowledged the true nature of its electoral dilemma (for its part the PPP still has not conceded the ethnic character of its electoral advantage), and has indicated a change of tactics. For over forty years, however, the history of the main opposition party has been one of either intermittent violence and disturbances, or of rigged elections. There is no way, therefore, that the PNC can accuse the PPP of moral turpitude as if it were itself pure of heart. The best that can be said at this stage, perhaps, is that the two old warhorse parties have maybe now achieved a greater moral equivalence.
This does not mean that we should abandon the call for an independent inquiry into the death-squad allegations and any possible government connections it might have had. Neither does it mean that we should hold an investigation into PNC activities in earlier times at this particular point; that party will have to say its mea culpas at some stage, but as of now we should be strictly concerned with more recent events at least partly because of the impact they will have on the future of our society. What, perhaps, might be more palatable would be to widen the time-frame of any investigation to encompass the whole context which gave rise to the death squad in the first instance, and to look at any individual political connections which the Buxton gang itself might have had. In other words, we begin with the date February 23, 2002, and cover all events thereafter up to a cut-off point which would have to be decided.
The PNCR has raised the possibility of amnesty for death squad members who perpetrated criminal acts, and for those who financed them. The amnesty might have to be wider than this insofar as it relates to criminal prosecution, but it is a complicated issue which again would have to be the subject of careful negotiation. Similarly, the hearings might have to be in camera, although any report arising out of those hearings presumably would be made public, otherwise there would be no point to the inquiry in the first place.
The PNCR has confined its campaign to the matter of the death squad and the alleged links of that group to government officials. But if it asks the government to agree to an investigation, it too must be prepared to allow the entire context of what occurred to be explored. If we are going to have honesty, let it be complete honesty from everyone, and not just from one side of the divide.
The administration in the form of Dr Roger Luncheon repeated again on Wednesday that it was not prepared to negotiate on the question of an independent investigation into the death squad killings. Its obduracy is wearing and counter-productive. What we need at this point, perhaps, is the intervention of some civil society group in the first instance, to create a forum where the government and the parliamentary opposition as a whole could discuss in private the possibilities for breaking the impasse. At the moment, there is no problem in this nation more in need of resolution.
The allegations concerning a death squad have brought this society to yet another standstill. At their heart is the charge that the squad had state sponsorship at some level, which if true, is no small accusation. It is the kind of imputation which in more normally structured democracies would have caused a government to act with dispatch against whichever of its members was enveloped in the cloud of suspicion. The fear that the administration as a whole could be contaminated by such allegations would have constituted sufficient incentive for quick action.
But not here. In this country the government has proved impervious to whatever evidence has been placed in the public domain, and has made statements on the subject which in some instances border on the obtuse. It has, in other words, behaved in a way which sends the message that it has something to hide. But this is not the total explanation. At the back of its obstinacy there is something else as well in operation - and that is the feeling of injustice. There has been no reckoning for the PNC in terms of its behaviour over many years, and now, after the ruling party attempted to respond to an 'evil' - albeit with another 'evil' - it is the one whose actions the opposition is demanding be the subject of an independent inquiry.
Of course, the PNCR will retort that the PPP/C is the party which came into office trumpeting the cause of the rule of law and accountability in government, and that it is therefore only being held to account by its own publicly declared standards. It will also argue - not without some merit - that the government during the Buxton crisis made no attempt to deploy the resources of the state at its disposal in a meaningful way, and by simple inaction allowed the situation to escalate.
Furthermore, it could point out - also not without justification - that from the beginning of its tenure in office, the governing party seriously mishandled the matter of the security services, placing all its reliance on the forerunners of the death squad, i.e., the 'Black Clothes' police. And while the government was seeking backing from the PNCR on the Buxton issue in 2002, it was nevertheless adamant for many months about not disbanding the 'Black Clothes,' thereby precluding any hope of opposition support.
But - and it is a big but - while all this is true to a greater or lesser degree, there is still a sense of historical injustice. Not just in relation to the current circumstances mentioned above, but also in relation to earlier times, when the PPP resorted to extra-legal methods generally only in response to similar methods employed against it or its supporters. It is only very recently, for example, that the PNC has publicly acknowledged the true nature of its electoral dilemma (for its part the PPP still has not conceded the ethnic character of its electoral advantage), and has indicated a change of tactics. For over forty years, however, the history of the main opposition party has been one of either intermittent violence and disturbances, or of rigged elections. There is no way, therefore, that the PNC can accuse the PPP of moral turpitude as if it were itself pure of heart. The best that can be said at this stage, perhaps, is that the two old warhorse parties have maybe now achieved a greater moral equivalence.
This does not mean that we should abandon the call for an independent inquiry into the death-squad allegations and any possible government connections it might have had. Neither does it mean that we should hold an investigation into PNC activities in earlier times at this particular point; that party will have to say its mea culpas at some stage, but as of now we should be strictly concerned with more recent events at least partly because of the impact they will have on the future of our society. What, perhaps, might be more palatable would be to widen the time-frame of any investigation to encompass the whole context which gave rise to the death squad in the first instance, and to look at any individual political connections which the Buxton gang itself might have had. In other words, we begin with the date February 23, 2002, and cover all events thereafter up to a cut-off point which would have to be decided.
The PNCR has raised the possibility of amnesty for death squad members who perpetrated criminal acts, and for those who financed them. The amnesty might have to be wider than this insofar as it relates to criminal prosecution, but it is a complicated issue which again would have to be the subject of careful negotiation. Similarly, the hearings might have to be in camera, although any report arising out of those hearings presumably would be made public, otherwise there would be no point to the inquiry in the first place.
The PNCR has confined its campaign to the matter of the death squad and the alleged links of that group to government officials. But if it asks the government to agree to an investigation, it too must be prepared to allow the entire context of what occurred to be explored. If we are going to have honesty, let it be complete honesty from everyone, and not just from one side of the divide.
The administration in the form of Dr Roger Luncheon repeated again on Wednesday that it was not prepared to negotiate on the question of an independent investigation into the death squad killings. Its obduracy is wearing and counter-productive. What we need at this point, perhaps, is the intervention of some civil society group in the first instance, to create a forum where the government and the parliamentary opposition as a whole could discuss in private the possibilities for breaking the impasse. At the moment, there is no problem in this nation more in need of resolution.