The first-decade of this century is notorious in this country’s history for massacres, mass killings, murders and executions. Fifteen massacres occurred during this period known as the ‘Troubles’ but, astonishingly, the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) administration which was in office at that time never convened inquests, investigations or inquiries into most of them, including the assassination of a PPPC minister.
Former President David Granger, speaking on the programme – The Public Interest – said that massacres and mass killings escalated as a result of the surge in narco-trafficking and gun-running between 2000 and 2010. Transnational crimes incubated drug gangs, death squads, bounty killers and bandit gangs. He argued, however, that the mere existence of gangs could not explain this country’s descent into the vortex of violence in which so many massacres occurred in such a short period.
Motivation should be sought for the extreme violence evinced by massacres. These occurred at Rose Hall, four persons killed by bandits in July 2002; Kitty, four persons killed in September 2002; Lamaha Gardens, seven persons killed in several sites in October 2002; Bourda, five persons killed in November 2002; Friendship, six persons killed in Army-Police operations in June 2003; Prashad Nagar, three persons killed in Army-Police operations in June 2003; Agricola-Eccles, eight persons killed in February 2006; La Bonne Intention, four persons killed in April 2006; Bagotstown-Eccles, eight persons killed in August 2006; Black Bush Polder, seven persons killed by the GDF in August 2006; Lusignan, eleven persons killed by bandits in January 2008; Bartica, twelve persons killed by bandits in February 2008; Lindo Creek, eight persons killed in June 2008; Arimu, four persons killed by the Police in February 2009; and Cummings Lodge, four persons killed in September 2010.
The former president questioned the motivation for the uninvestigated assassination of a minister; the uninvestigated assassination of the Deputy Head of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit; the uninvestigated attempted assassination of the Director of Public Prosecutions; the investigation into the alleged involvement of a minister in the direction of a ‘death’ squad; and the alleged implication of another minister in the acquisition of a computer to track the telephone communication and location of adversaries targeted for assassination.
The State was accused of condoning or cooperating with death squads during the decade of the ‘Troubles’ which recorded 1,432 murders. There were 139 more murders in 2010 and 130 in 2011 – bringing the total number to 1,701. The Police killed 255 persons between January 1997 and October 2012 when the country was caught in a vortex of violence.
The former president reminded that the grim monuments – in Bartica, Buxton, Kingston and Lusignan – commemorating the victims of massacres in ‘Troubles’ need not have been erected had the PPPC administration implemented the recommendations for security sector reform that it had been receiving since 1999. The PPPC, instead of trying to eradicate the causes, seemed more concerned with concealing actual cases of criminality. Blasé drivel by PPPC officials of ‘taking secrets to the grave’ in the obsequies of so many dead is both a travesty of good governance and a tragedy for humanity.
