Police Constable Sherwin Peters has been found guilty of manslaughter in the killing of Mr. Orin Boston of Dartmouth, Essequibo. Barring some egregious error, or technical mishap, that verdict was all but foregone in a murder that rocked the distant, rustic confines of Essequibo. Yet, I feel for Constable Peters, now ex-constable of the Guyana Police Force. Now a man awaiting sentence that, no matter the length, will hound him for the rest of his now shattered life.
Two lives, that of two families, ruptured by gunshot in the predawn hours in a silent and sleepy, but highly coveted, hamlet of Guyana. I share why I empathise with citizen Peters, with certainty that there will be many who will denounce for it. Denounce away, good people.
Sherwin Peters, a convicted felon, is not the problem. He is the visible expression of it, as cloaked with all the authority of that audible crack of a rifle shot in the fading hours of the dark. A man shot in his bed. Guyanese are urged to grab hold of the binoculars of the mind and peer inside that bedroom, on that now blood-soaked bed, so they run full tilt into the jarring.
Orin Boston’s life ebbing away, Mrs. Fiona Boston’s life suddenly bent backwards in disarray. In disbelief, in despair. What incomparable nightmare at dawn can this be? One instance in time, one shot, one life, one constable, one wife, one family torn asunder in one moment straight out of the bowels of hell.
Ex-Constable Peters is the sacrificial lamb. He has to atone for the savageries that are now so commonplace in this country. The savageries reach high, and Peters is the scapegoat that gets nabbed for them, pay the price for others.
I feel for Mr. Peters, because when he feels empowered to follow orders (whatever those were) and invade that last sanctuary of sacred rights, a man’s humble or proud castle, then there is Guyana in technicolor under the PPP Government, with the red spray and haze of blood before sunup staining sight and searing consciousness. I discarded conscience because that has been trampled upon, easily surrendered, being part of the collateral damage from the continued assaults of the all-powerful and ever-rampaging State. I trust that the Offices of the President and Vice President are reading, absorbing.
The late Orin Boston’s home and family should be visited during one of those campaign swings. Mrs. Boston could use the show of interest, however artificial, however paltry. I went past the Commissioner of Police and the Minister of Home Affairs in this Orin Boston-Sherwin Peters tragedy. It is bigger than those two remarkable citizens, agents of the marauding State.
Because when a policeman could shoot a man in his bed, as if he were a feared scorpion, a meaningless commodity, then Guyana hasn’t crossed a bridge too far. Guyana has descended too far below six feet under. Those in the PPP Government with PhDs may not understand, or pretend not to, but Bharrat Jagdeo would, since he has more familiarity with death. Death in such circumstances.
When the mighty arm of the Police Force, the Police Troop, the Police Guardsmen can feel so invincible that it is extended so recklessly, so heinously, so arrogantly in one community after another, and one target after another, then that’s not manslaughter, but the slaughter of innocents. Innocents who always seem to have that smoking extension appearing, attached to them. It is not a cigarette, but an instrument made of steel. Linden. East Coast Demerara. Essequibo.
A cover story is always nearby, ready to be dusted off, and stuffed into the nostrils of naïve and docile Guyanese. Armed, dangerous, menacing. Including while lying in bed, in the case of Orin Boston. All lives matter, but with one qualifier usually unsaid, but not unknown: some lives are cheaper than others. The Guyana environment confirms that doesn’t it, and not just in blood. Think parliament. Think village government. Think human rights.
Sherwin Peters will serve his sentence. There are those who should serve longer, harsher sentences for creating the kind of environment that fosters crimes like these. Those behind this depraved indifference for, this cavalier and callous dismissal of, the lives and rights of Guyanese. For every Sherwin Peters found guilty of manslaughter, there are 10 generals who stand convicted. They are higher than any commander in the Guyana Police, higher than the Top Cop.
Orin Boston is gone. Sherwin Peters goes to meet his fate. Mrs. Fiona Boston and her family go forward somehow in this scorched, bloodstained, and covered over country called Guyana. Those who arrange circumstances that lead to this culture of killing and camouflaging, they go along too to their own day of reckoning. It doesn’t have one damn thing to do with elections.
