Submitted by Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy
NEW YORK: The New York based Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy on Saturday harshly condemned the unjustified shooting to death of an innocent sixteen year-old Guyanese school boy by the Guyana Police Force, and has, in an urgent letter to United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, called on the Obama Administration to “suspend bilateral security assistance to the Guyana Police Force.”
In a strongly worded statement issued by Director of Communications, Jevon Suralie, the Institute said that “On Monday June 7, 2010 Police officers from the Wales Police Station shot and killed Kelvin Fraser, a fourth form student of the Patentia Secondary School, without justification. The officers who killed Kelvin Fraser are from the same division as the officers who last year doused the pelvic area of another minor, fifteen year old Twyon Thomas, with a flammable substance and set his genitals afire and further tortured the teen,” CGID said.
Reports are that the Police officers may have been responding to a report of disorderly conduct by a group of students at Fraser’s school. When the officers arrived, students ostensibly started running and Fraser, who was allegedly unaware of the situation, saw the commotion and began running as well. It was at this point that a rank, armed with a shot gun, caught up to him and opened fire. The lad, who was shot at point blank range, then fell into a muddy ditch.
The child was later removed from the ditch and placed into a vehicle, where he was left to bleed to death, while officers continued to pursue other students. Fraser, who died at the scene, was only transported to the West Demerara Regional Hospital after the Police concluded their investigations at the school, several hours after he was shot. He was pronounced dead on arrival.
An autopsy on the 16-year-old revealed that he was shot in the left side of his chest at close range and died of shock and haemorrhage from laceration of the lungs caused by gunshot injuries. Several pellets were recovered from his body. The teen’s mother, Sharon Fraser, has disclosed that pellets from the bullet severely damaged her son’s internal organs and there was no way he could have survived. She has accused the Guyana Police of murdering Kelvin, and is demanding justice for her son.
The Police Thursday claimed Kelvin Fraser was shot during a scuffle with a rank who was attempting to arrest him. But teachers, fellow students, relatives and other witnesses have all described the Police account as a deliberate lie and a cover up. Teachers and Students of the Patentia Secondary School mounted a peaceful justice march and protest on Thursday outside the Guyanese Ministry of Home Affairs and National Security. However, Police attempted to shut down the protest and blocked the students from marching in front of the Ministry. They later arrested the driver of the vehicle who transported the students, as well as community activist Mark Benschop. Benschop, who was previously jailed for five years without a trial for criticizing the Guyana government, was released in 2007.
CGID President Rickford Burke Saturday in various radio interviews slammed the Police and labeled the shooting “a blatant act of murder.” He lampooned the Police for arming themselves with assault rifles to disperse children who were allegedly behaving disorderly, and called on Guyana’s Police Commissioner Henry Green and Director of Public Prosecutions, Shalimar Ali-Hack, to indict the rank who killed Fraser for murder.
“We must send a message to the animals in the Guyana Police Force that we have had enough of their barbaric conduct, and would hold them to account under the rule of law. In any civilized part of the world, a Police officer who shoots and kills an innocent school child for no reason, would be charged with first degree murder. We expect no less charge in this case,” Burke contended.
Burke said that Police Commissioner Green was a disgrace to law enforcement around the world and called for his removal. He also blasted the Guyana Police Force as a “cesspool of corrupt minions, injustices, human rights atrocities, drug-dealers, outright gangsters and murders, and said that such a Gestapo squad should no longer benefit from American taxpayer dollars, unless there is a genuine change in leadership and meaningful, professional and legal reforms implemented to transform the Force into a credible law enforcement entity.”
He observed that American citizens must be outraged when the resources of the US are used to prop-up the despotic regime in Guyana as well as a Police Commissioner whose US visa was revoked for alleged criminal associations.” The CGID President also said that there is a view that the Obama administration’s posture on Guyana appears to be a double standard when juxtaposed with its tough policies on countries like Jamaica. “The US government cannot punish the government of Jamaica for alleged criminal associations with unsavorily characters like Christopher “Dudus” Coke and simultaneously continue to engage President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana, whose government has been complicit with drug dealers and others criminal enterprises, and whose criminals associations read like a who of who of a crack den,” Burke added.
Burke on Saturday requested a meeting with New York members of the US Congress to discuss Fraser’s murder, as well as the plethora of human rights abuses by the Guyana Police Force, and has vowed to pressure the Obama Administration and the US Congress to suspend aid to Guyana until human rights and extra-judicial killings in Guyana are adequately investigated and criminal indictments against guilty parties are entered.
The Institute’s head has perennially accused the Guyana Police of crimes against humanity and pointed to several reports including a 2008 UN report which cited members of the Guyana Police Force for engaging in extra-judicial killings and for being complicit with convicted drug dealer Roger Khan and his gang the “Phantom death squad.”
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