GS Jagdeo confirms crime wave CoI to be announced soon

– calls out Opposition’s ‘race-baiting’

A long-awaited Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into Guyana’s early 2000s crime wave is set to be announced soon, according to General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Dr Bharrat Jagdeo.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, he confirmed that President Mohamed Irfaan Ali will soon announce the establishment of the CoI, which is expected to investigate claims of extrajudicial killings and other crimes during the turbulent period.

Dr Jagdeo’s comments come in response to statements made by the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) during International Day of Democracy celebrations on September 15, 2024. The opposition parties had expressed concerns over alleged extrajudicial killings of hundreds of young Guyanese men of African descent, linking the incidents to the previous PPP/C government. However, Jagdeo criticized these claims as hypocritical and filled with race-baiting rhetoric.

He highlighted that the government is moving forward with the CoI to address the truth behind these allegations, which have resurfaced in recent years with claims of up to 2,000 killings.

“They continue to perpetuate the lies…it is an old racist thing,” Jagdeo said at Freedom House, Georgetown, adding that the terms of reference for the inquiry are being finalized.

*HYPOCRISY*

Dr Jagdeo also criticized the opposition for its contradictory stance on extrajudicial killings, recalling their support for criminals during the crime wave following the infamous 2002 Camp Street prison jailbreak. He accused the PNCR and AFC of labeling criminals as “freedom fighters” during that period, which saw an unprecedented rise in armed robberies, murders, and police-targeted killings.

He said, “I spoke with some elements of law enforcement from the US and met with me when I was president and they said to me ‘you’re not dealing with a situation of criminality here; you’re dealing with an insurgency’ there because the PNC/APNU/AFC operatives at that time – it was some of the individuals who are part of the AFC now were part of the PNC at that time – were going on the ground, talking with the criminals, supplying them with stuff, also telling people in the villages that every time our law enforcement agencies went in there, that they must come out in front of the police and the soldiers.

“In that period we had weapons lost. As president had to deal with Winston Felix as Commissioner of Police and Collins as head of the Army – both of whom on leaving service, joined the PNC and became members of the leadership of that Party…that is what I had to deal with – a Commissioner of Police and head of the Army that might have been sabotaging me a president.”

Dr Jagdeo also referenced former President David Granger’s 2018 promise to launch a CoI into the crime wave, which was never fulfilled. Granger had pledged to investigate the “troubled period” from 2002 to 2009, which his administration claimed saw 1,431 murders. Despite this commitment, the CoI never materialized.

The PPP General Secretary questioned why Granger, known for launching several other commissions of inquiry, failed to initiate this particular probe. Jagdeo suggested that Granger was likely dissuaded from pursuing the inquiry because it would have exposed the PNCR’s involvement in the crime wave.

He said, “Granger had promised to have a Commission of Inquiry into the killings at that time – the ‘Troubled Period. In fact, it was a period when the PNC and AFC supported a group of bandits who escaped from the prison and wreaked havoc on the citizens of this country until they were either arrested or killed by the security forces. They were upfront supporting these people – politically, on television, calling them freedom fighters, calling people who were killing babies and everyone else freedom fighters….and they have the audacity to talk about extra-judicial killings now.

“…why do you think Granger never launched the Commission of Inquiry? Granger was notorious for launching Commissions of Inquiry. He did about eight of them and spent nearly $500 million…and he promised this one (into the crime wave) before the election. Why do you think he didn’t do this one? He was dissuaded, I think from doing it, because he knew what would’ve showed up and the culpable party would have been the PNC/APNU.”

*CLAIMS DISMANTLED*

Dr. Jagdeo also referenced a 2019 investigative report by Stabroek News, which debunked the opposition’s claims of indiscriminate killings during the crime wave.

In November 2019, the 32-page findings of an investigative report by the independently–run Stabroek News, exposed the falsehoods peddled by the PNCR-led APNU+AFC Coalition about the crime wave and dismantled the notion that young Afro-Guyanese men were killed indiscriminately.

The PNCR-led APNU+AFC Coalition had claimed that -some 400 young Afro-Guyanese died as a result of extra-judicial killings during the crime wave.

However, the Stabroek News investigative report pointed out that some 420 persons were killed between February 2002 and September 2006 – 151 murdered by bandits, 30 security officers were killed and 239 were killed during confrontations with the police and in unexplained circumstances. It added that the drug trade was a major part of the period in question. 

After the report was published, comments along this line subsidised, but has returned and are now greatly exaggerated with the claim being almost 2,000 young Afro-Guyanese died under the former PPP/C government.

UN HUMAN RIGHTS RECOMMENDATION

The decision to move forward with the CoI is also in line with a recommendation from the United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC). In its March 2024 review of Guyana’s report on the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the HRC urged the government to prioritize the investigation of alleged extrajudicial killings during the 2002–2006 crime wave.

Dr Jagdeo reaffirmed the government’s commitment to conducting the CoI, stating, “We will get to the bottom of this,” and emphasizing the need for the truth to come out.