Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee said that the order to shoot protesters on December 6 not come from the high command of the force or him, but rather the commander on the ground took the decision without consulting his superiors.
Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee
Rohee, who stopped short of condemning the actions of the ranks, said it was time that clearer guidelines are given on crowd control. At a meeting with senior officers of the force on Thursday, he expressed surprise that a junior rank has the authority to make such an important decision and expressed the view that such a decision ought to be made at a higher level.
Rohee said, however, he was advised that according to the Standard Operations Procedures this is indeed the case, and in light of the circumstances on the ground at the time, it was the unit commander who made the decision himself, without consulting the divisional commander or the police commissioner, to spray the demonstrators with rubber bullets.
“The minister conveyed to the senior ranks present his concern about this serious lapse in the execution of the SOP as regards crowd control and called upon the commissioner to immediately begin putting in place other best practices in respect of crowd control, the necessary corrective administrative and command control measures to avoid a repetition of the unfortunate turn of events of Tuesday,”
Rohee said in a statement. The minister said he received detailed oral reports from all the police officers who were involved in monitoring the protest march up to the shooting of the rubber bullets and the arrest of some of the protestors.
Deep concern
Meanwhile, Rohee said the meeting with the senior ranks was held out of deep concern over the incident. Among the officers at the meeting were: Police Commissioner Henry Greene; A Division Commander, Assistant Commissioner George Vyphuis; Senior Superintendent Linden Alves; Superintendent Errol Watts; Superintendent Clifton Hicken and Patrick Todd, who was the unit commander of the ranks who shot at the protesters.
Rohee stated that the Home Affairs Ministry has always sought to restrain itself from interfering in operational matters executed by the Guyana Police Force. “The ministry has always done its level best to restrict itself to policy, programmatic and budgetary issues in respect to its role vis- à-vis the Guyana Police Force. This role, notwithstanding, the senior police ranks present at the meeting were advised by the minister that while operational matters undoubtedly fall within the purview of the Guyana Police Force, once badly executed due to poor judgment by ranks on the ground, they can have serious political repercussions as was demonstrated by the events on December 6, 2011.”
