Dear Editor,
I read, with much alarm, the editorial in the Sunday edition of the Kaieteur News dated October 20 headlined “Kill them all?” I would like to think that it would be standard that a person writing an editorial would have researched the topic on which he chose to write and report accurately, with full unbiased, disclosure.
Firstly, I am not a commissioner at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). I resigned.
Secondly, I never held a position of the quasi head of the Guyana Legal Aid Clinic. After volunteering for one and a half years there, I was employed, on a part-time contract as a children’s legal aid lawyer. I served there for about four years until last year.
I still provide pro bono services for many persons who are underprivileged and have no access to the justice system, although I do not do it from the legal aid clinic.
Thirdly, and most importantly, this editorial deliberately chose to leave out the parts of the conversation where I expressly stated that I was against extra- judicial killings and that I do not condone all actions of the police, that this was nothing but my view and that, in this instance, I believed the police’s version on the account of what transpired that night.
That editorial may call me “cold”, “insensitive”, “draconian”, or whatever it chooses to call me, as in relation to my opinion on persons who use force against the police and innocent citizens.
However, the editorial of a newspaper, in my view, ought to be balanced, well researched and of full disclosure, presenting all the facts known to it or that ought to be known to it, thereby leaving its readers to form a view.
I urge the owner and publisher of the Kaieteur News to ponder whether the writer of the editorial can hereafter be trusted to present the truth of what transpired on any matter that he reports.
I wish to note with some alarm that there are many views very similar to mine on Facebook and in the public domain. I am concerned that this editorial addressed my views in isolation from other similar views.
With regards,
Jaya Manickchand