Buxton-Friendship on the East Coast of Demerara had become a politically significant community nearly 160 years ago on account of the anti-colonial ‘Great Rates War’ of 1865. It became a security-significant community on account of the murder of the Sealey couple and others during the PPP’s ‘Hurricane of Protest’ in 1964. It became a place of interest on account of the Working People’s Alliance ‘civil rebellion’ in 1979 against the People’s National Congress (PNC) administration when its leaders acknowledged that it had “…accumulated weapons to overthrow the government.” The village then became the victim of state violence during the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C)-directed ‘Troubles’ in 2002.
Former President David Granger, speaking on the weekly programme – The Public Interest – lamented the unjustified stigmatisation of the entire community as a violent place and the undeserved distress of its residents. He felt that the violence directed towards villagers in the new century was cold-blooded and calculated. He explained that, by the start of this century during ‘Operation Hamburger’, a section of the Police Force’s Target Special Squad had been based, tactically, at the Cove and John police station about 8 km from Buxton and at the Vigilance police station, a few hundred metres away. Some notorious members of the TSS − remembered by nicknames such as Baby Face; Golden Gun; Guinness and Toots − had reputations for violence towards villagers.
Mr. Granger recalled that poor, young, male villagers were frequently arrested; assaulted; confined in motorcar trunks; detained overnight in the police stations’ lockups and subjected to cruel treatment by the TSS. The arrest and assault of a young village leader on 6th November 1999 angered villagers who protested and picketed the Ministry of Home Affairs and met the Minister.
Restlessness started after the General and Regional Elections on 19th March 2001 and tension heightened as days passed without the Elections Commission’s declaration of official results. Attempts by GECOM agents to remove Statements of Poll from a polling station in the community on 22nd March, even before the declaration of the official elections results, were resisted. This led to a confrontation with the police which was resolved peacefully. Nevertheless, the police returned with reinforcements, including the notorious TSS.
The former president expressed his considered opinion that restlessness up to 2001 was ‘civil’, not ‘political,’ as some villagers’ felt that they had been deliberately disenfranchised. Restlessness erupted as a result of, and in response to, police violence – discharging tear smoke indiscriminately in housing areas injuring fourteen persons and shooting fourteen villagers with pellets on 22nd March. The situation deteriorated mainly because some young people were disallowed from voting. He insisted that maintaining public order in modern society is a civil police function that should not normally require the deployment of military force. Premature and provocative military deployment of the Defence Force triggered the escalation of violence and ignited instability at that time.
Buxton-Friendship, despite the behaviour of some bad elements at an early stage of the unrest, lived up to its reputation as a valiant village that was unafraid to make its voice heard when faced with injustice. Electoral disenfranchisement, unequal treatment and state violence in the form of intolerable police cruelty caused civil unrest up to 2021.
