Georgetown: Opposition leader, Bharrat Jagdeo has repeated his call and challenging to the government to launch an investigation into mid 2000s crime wave killings.
Jagdeo’s challenged comes in the aftermath of claims by Attorney General Basil Williams that the People Progressive Party government had facilitated the crime in that period.
Williams in a recent statement chided the PPP/C, claiming that the Party presided over the worst kinds of violence ever seen in the history Guyana or any CARICOM member state.” “Extra-judicial killings were conducted by a variety of state-sponsored death squads, including the black clothes squad, Gajraj squad, and the phantom squad,” he said.
The Attorney General alleged the PPP/C handed over the public security of the nation to drug lords and enlisted convicted drug lord, Roger Khan, to fight crime on the state’s behalf. Khan himself had confessed in a full page advertisement in the local newspapers about this.
“The PPP/C‘s reign of terror left over nine hundred dead. In its wake included its own Minister, Satyadeo Sawh, for which no inquest or inquiry was held.”
In response to the allegations, Jagdeo noted that the current administration had promised to investigate the crime wave but it had so far failed to make good on those promises.
“If they feel so strongly about these claims, why don’t they have a Commission of Inquiry (CoI)? Jagdeo asked.
The Opposition Leader reasoned further that if there was a “real” CoI – a comprehensive review of the crime wave – several persons in the Coalition government, including Government Ministers, would be “really” uncomfortable.
“They can also look at the role of drug dealers and whether the drug dealers had links to the government,” he had said, referring to the criticism repeated by members of the PNC-led Coalition Government, regarding Roger Khan.
“Launch a proper CoI… why haven’t they done this? It is because many of them will be exposed in the reign of terror that hurt our country, until the security forces dealt with it.”
In 2015, shortly after he assumed office, President David Granger announced that thorough inquiries will be held into the killings of former Minister of Agriculture, Satyadeow ‘Sash’ Sawh and all who were slain during the 2000 and 2008 period.
The President had promised that in due course, he will ensure that all those slain during that period have their deaths investigated.
“When you have ministers of government bringing in computers so you can track down people’s mobile phones; when you have a lot of men being shot at the back of their heads with their hands tied; when you have so many deaths which are not being investigated; when you have a minister of government who has been assassinated and you don’t have an inquest into his death, there is something stink and we are going to investigate those deaths,” said Granger.
Jagdeo had said he was willing to testify if a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) is set up to investigate the deaths of hundreds of persons during the unprecedented crime wave that began his tenure.
Jagdeo recalled that as president, police showed him a confession statement made by the girlfriend of one of the criminals who went to the home of former Agriculture Minister Satyadeow ‘Sash’ Sawh on the night he was killed. “We knew who they [the killers] were. They were in prison and some of them got killed in the shootout…Their names were called…Police showed me but I don’t know they if [the names] are still in the files,” he stressed.
He also said that the previous government was too inexperienced to ensure that a copy of this information and all other evidence gathered during that period was made and held at a secure location. “At the time, we did not think anyone would want to politicise this period. In fact maybe it’s naive…. Our big focus was on development,” he stressed.
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