The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) extends condolences to the family and acquaintances of Ronald Waddell over his violent death last Monday night and the hope that his spirit rests in peace. The manner of his death is shocking to all law-abiding citizens.
By contrast the almost ‘business as usual’ response from the Government is a measure of how far from the standards of a law-abiding society we have drifted. It is alarming that the international community should precede local authorities in seeing the link between Ronald Waddell’s death, wider violence and the future of the society.
Ronald Waddell’s manner of demanding justice for the black community was viewed by many as repulsive incitement to racial hatred. A dispassionate judgement would recognize, however, that the more the authorities resist recognition of the issue, the more strident will be the efforts for them to do so. This is not to say the Government is obliged to accept the position of radical black leaders, but it is obliged, both by justice and common sense, to set in train transparent processes to allow the claims to be properly ventilated.
Over the past year proponents of the thesis that the black community is being systematically marginalized can point to the following as evidence their concerns are not taken seriously:
– Recommendations of the Disciplined Services Commission have been consigned to oblivion.
– An enquiry into a spate of extra-judicial ‘phantom’ killings of predominantly black men was reduced to whether the then Minister of Home Affairs was personally responsible. The substantive issue of who was responsible was never pursued.
– An extra-ordinary proliferation of unlicensed weapons.
– The removal of Ronald Waddell by NBTV Channel 9 – while justified in our view – did not prompt any steps to address the fundamental issue which promoted increasingly radical expression of this kind.
– No enquiry has been held into the origins and conduct of the East Coast violence.
– The recent call by ACDA for the black community to boycott elections unless some form of shared governance is put in place.
– A perception that powerful drug gangs operate at best with official indifference and at worst with official collusion.
The GHRA is not supporting nor opposing the substance of the allegations of exclusion. We are, however, alarmed that the Government is either oblivious to or calculatedly dismissive of these concerns. A fact normally overlooked is that while these issues may be articulated largely by Afro-Guyanese regarded as radical, a wide spectrum of Guyanese of all races, classes and political persuasion want them resolved.
The most immediate action required of the Government is to ensure the most professional investigation possible into Ronald Waddell’s death. This almost certainly involves making foreign expertise available to support the GPF. In view of where investigations may lead, it may even be prudent that responsibility for the investigation also be handed over to external agencies who do not have to live with the consequences of their findings.
With respect to the larger picture, responsibility to initiate processes to rehabilitate political life lies with the Government, regardless of the performance of the opposition. The required response is neither a grand, unrealistic gesture nor routine mutual abuse by the two major parties. It is incumbent on both parties to work within a Parliamentary – rather than Presidential – framework to produce effective responses to the following urgent issues:
i. reduce the proliferation of small arms, both legal and illegal, (which includes all hand-held weapons),
ii. confront the drug cartels iii. implement the Recommendations of the DSC Report
iv. ensure national elections defuse rather than ignite racial animosity.
If any of this were to materialize, the death of Ronald Waddell may mark the beginning of the end of the confrontational politics he chose to espouse.
Executive Committee
Guyana Human Rights Association
February 4 2006
