GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC—The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) is calling on the government to end its ministerial control over the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and establish a civilian oversight mechanism.
“Guyana urgently needs to operationalize accountability to these multiple audiences by the creation of a Civilian Oversight Board to replace monolithic Ministerial control,” the GHRA said in a statement, as the fallout continues over the death of 11-year-old Adrianna Younge, whose body was found in the pool of the Double Day Hotel in Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo on Thursday, sending shockwaves across the country.
The GHRA said such a system would allow the GPF to be monitored by multiple mechanisms, such as parliament, the judiciary, the media, and complaints boards. It recalls that innumerable commissions have made similar inquiry recommendations.
It said President Irfaan Ali’s assurance that all necessary resources are being made available to the GPF to get to the bottom of the death of the teenager is “weak and unconvincing.”
Ali had earlier stated his administration’s commitment to uncovering the whole truth surrounding the circumstances of Adrianna’s death, saying, “No resource will be spared in getting to the facts and the truth.”
He also directed the Commissioner of Police to assemble a special investigative team to examine every aspect of the incident.
However, in its statement, the GHRA said that a more realistic response to the growing public unrest over policing in Guyana should be the appointment of a Police Commissioner in keeping with Guyana’s Constitution and the restoration of the name to the Guyana Police Service “quietly discarded in recent years.”
Attorney Darren Wade, who is representing the family of the dead teenager, called for the GPF to release video recordings to prove that the girl was seen entering a vehicle on Wednesday.
“I am instructed to make the following demand that the Guyana Police Force immediately release the video footage they claim to possess, allegedly showing the deceased leaving the hotel,” Wade said.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, speaking at his weekly news conference on Thursday, also called on the police to release the video.
“ I don’t know why there is a delay in releasing this footage because this is very inconsistent with the entire story…We want to see it as a country, and the family would want to see that, too. After this young lady left, how did her body return to the pool? Something is wrong, and we have to get to the bottom of this, and we’re not going to rest until that happens,” Jagdeo said.
In a statement, the police said that “the Command Centre in Regional Division #3 was contacted and viewed footage showing that Adrianna entered a Red and Black Raum motor car bearing registration number PSS 4684, which drove off in an eastern direction heading towards Vreed-en-Hoop.”
After incessant calls for the Double Day Hotel to be searched a third time, the girl’s body was found in the hotel’s pool. The hotel and a nearby building, also owned by the hotelier, were set alight, and looters also carted off items from the hotel.
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