Commission of Inquiry into 2002-2006 violence will be held- Jagdeo

Last Updated on Thursday, 28 March 2024, 21:21 by Denis Chabrol

FLASH BACK: Bodies of those killed in the Bartica massacre being transported by boat.

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday announced that a Commission of Inquiry (COI) into extrajudicial killings between 2002 and 2006 that had been promised by the then coalition administration would be held.

“The government will be going ahead with this COI because the UN wants it, Granger wanted it and I hope that there will be no prevarication anymore. There shall be a COI into what took place in this period,” he said.

No time frame was given within which the inquiry would be held.

His ann0uncement came the same day that the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) said in its concluding observations on Guyana’s third periodic report that it was concerned that “no substantive progress has been made to establish the Presidential Commission of Inquiry to investigate allegations of extrajudicial killings during that period despite the government’s plan to do so in 2018.”

Then President, David Granger had promised t0 order a COI into that violent crime wave that had included the Lusignan, Bartica and Lindo Creek massacres; gunning down of then Agriculture Minister Satyadeow Sawh, other killings, and kidnappings. A COI was held into the Lindo Creek massacre. Political activist and television talk-show host, Ronald Waddell was shot dead outside his Subryanville home.

Mr Jagdeo on Thursday again pointed fingers at the People’s National Congress Reform for having been responsible for what he termed an “insurgency” against his People’s Progressive Party Civic administration when he was president. In turn, the government had been accused of killing hundreds or thousands of mainly Afro-Guyanese men during that period.

Several members of the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Defence Force had also been shot dead by gunmen who had been armed with assault rifles, including about 20 AK-47s which had been stolen from the Guyana Defence Force’s armoury at Camp Ayanganna.

A court case in New York had received documentary evidence that the Guyana government had authorised the purchase of sophisticated phone interception and triangulation equipment that had been found in a bullet proof vehicle in the possession of  Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan who was subsequently convicted for drug trafficking in the United States.

Before Khan had been arrested in Suriname, he had published a number of statements in a local newspaper including one in which he had stated that he prevented a coup against the Jagdeo administration.

The crime wave began in February 2002 when five inmates escaped from the Georgetown Prison and took up safe-haven in Buxton, East Coast Demerara where the gang expanded and guns and ammunition were acquired.

The UNHRC  on Thursday said it was “concerned that no substantive progress has been made to establish the Presidential Commission of Inquiry to investigate allegations of extrajudicial killings during that period despite the government’s plan to do so in 2018.”