The APNU+AFC Coalition is outraged at the continuation and intensification of the campaign of vulgar political persecution of professionals in Guyana.
The latest episode has been the arrest of former senior police officers and members of the Police Service Commission (PSC) – Assistant Commissioners (Rtd) Clinton Conway and Ivelaw Whittaker, and retired senior officer George Fraser.
It is reported that there is a plan to also arrest PSC Chairman and distinguished and internationally respected Assistant Commissioner (Rtd) Paul Slowe.
These are frightening and chilling developments that signal, beyond debate, that Guyana has sunken into a state of naked dictatorship. The charges are spurious, vexatious, and without merit or basis.
They are trumped up and designed to intimidate these former senior police officers who have been executing their work as Chairman and members of the PSC with the highest degree of professionalism and integrity.
The PPP is clearly now attempting to tarnish their impeccable reputations and dismantle the professionally constituted PSC to install their cronies, who will, in turn, do their bidding and promote pliant and favoured officers to the hierarchy of the Police Force.
The PPP is hell-bent on completely eroding all vestiges of professionalism within the Guyana Police Force and completely render it into a political weapon to target and persecute political opponents and the citizens of Guyana who oppose their authoritarianism.
This is the PPP’s well-known modus operandi – to destroy constitutional and other institutions and to install their own cronies who will execute their political directives and bidding.
The PSC serves as a critical guardrail of democracy in Guyana and the independence of the police force from political interference. The PPP is now attempting to demolish this guardrail and render democracy in Guyana comatose.
The PPP regime is fully aware that Chief Justice Roxane George is set to rule on matters before her regarding the PSC on Monday, May 24. It is evident that the regime has come to the realisation that the ruling is likely to uphold the professional and lawful conduct of the PSC and as such, they are seeking to take pre-emptive and alternative action to otherwise discredit the PSC and its members.
This will not work and the APNU+AFC Coalition stands in solidarity with the professional members of the PSC. We call on all regional and international law enforcement bodies, governments, human rights organizations, and law-abiding and right-thinking citizens to condemn these reprehensible actions by the PPP as they seek to dominate and impose their singular will on the Guyanese society.
The rule of law and the tenets of democracy must be restored and zealously upheld and maintained in Guyana.
