POLITICS IS ALSO A CAUSE OF VIOLENCE

Jan 23, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Political parties, and particularly the PNCR, should not attempt to extricate themselves from the culture of violence in which the country is ensnared. It is one thing to speak about the violence that erupted from 2002; it is another thing to ignore its links to political crises in the country.
A crisis erupted in Guyana following the 2001 elections. Buxton was the starting point of that eruption after agitators complained that election material was being removed, as is the norm after any election.
This was just the pretext for subsequent violence that erupted later that day not just at Buxton but at a number of communities along the East Coast. The violence on that day was orchestrated and organized. It was not spontaneous.
The prison escapees used Buxton as their base to launch attacks on innocent Guyanese. The gang that was in Buxton even went against the women of Buxton. They burnt down an old lady’s home. They raped the women of Buxton and launched bloody robberies from that base. The gunmen, through their spokesman, Andrew Douglas, who was later killed in a shootout in Sheriff Street, claimed his men were freedom fighters.
In whose cause were they fighting?
Not a single target related to the PNC was touched during the many forays of that gang which emerged after the 2001 elections. The PNC lost those elections. It had also lost the 1997 elections and it was after that defeat that there was violence and looting in the streets of Georgetown following prolonged street protests after the then PNC leader launched his “slow fyah, more fyah” campaign.
There is a history of violence in this country following political conflict. The violence of the 1960s’ is part of that history. The PPP was tormented by protests and violence from 1961 to 1964. There was violence following the 1992 and 1997 elections.
Every time there has been a political crisis in this country, there has been an upsurge in criminal activities. The link between violence in the society and violence in the homes must therefore also apply to political violence and not just to criminal violence. Time and time again there has been correlation between political crisis and criminal violence.
Domestic violence existed long before the problems of the post 2001 period. This violence still exists. There is no empirical evidence that it is higher today. It is more deadly though. The violence in homes has continued since May 11, 2015 despite the fact that there was no unrest in the country. The PPP made their excuses about the elections but they did not launch the sort of political protests that the PNCR had launched after the 1997 and 2001 elections.
If anything may be said it is that with Inspector Gadget and all the other so- called “freedom fighters roaming, women felt safer at home than in the streets at that time.
The PPP used the excuse of drug gangs being responsible for the post-2002 violence because it did not wish to admit to its helplessness in the face of the assaults by these criminal gangs. They therefore tried to pass it off as the work of drug gangs, but it believed that there were political undertones and possible links to this violence.
A great deal of political revisionism is taking place today. An attempt is being made to link domestic violence to criminal violence and to violence within the State. There may be such links but if such links exist there is no plausible reason why political conflict cannot be added as a cause of domestic violence.

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