Tellin’ it...

…like it is

It might’ve been a “talk shop”, as TT’s Opposition Leader Kamla Bissessar sniped, but there was a whole lotta TOUGH talk coming outta the just concluded Caricom Symposium on Crime. Nev-er mind their stated commitment to consider crime as a “Public Health” problem, the gathered Caribbean leaders to a man (and woman) didn’t pull no punches. Kamla’s intervention was typi-cal. Honing in on “home invasions” that’ve now become routine in the land of Carnival and Kai-so, she morphed into Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” – squint and all!!

She pointed out this was the #1 fear in the land: “You can see sometimes seven men jump over your wall and invade the sanctity of your home, with guns, with cutlasses, with other weap-ons…They torture, rob, they rape and then like rats jump off your house in rapid succession to proceed to a waiting car to move to the next venue.” She recommended that homeowners de-fend their “castle” by any means necessary – and the namby-pamby law of responding with “commensurate” force - be dumped!! “Shoot on sight” and “hang ‘em high” would be appro-priate legislation!! If the home invaders were unfortunately not killed, there should be MANDA-TORY 25-year sentences imposed!!

Now you may think that Kamla’s some right-wing, law and order nut but how do you explain St Vincent’s dyed in the wool socialist Ralph Gonsalves identical position?? He went against his “mother and the Pope” to call for the death penalty for murder!! He didn’t spare the Judiciary: “How could you go and give somebody who’s charged with murder, bail? Let’s be serious! …Where do those judges live? On Mars?” He didn’t spare Opposition politicians who sanctimo-niously urge they be included in crime fighting efforts but will only “undermine” initiatives as they try to “expose, oppose and depose” the government”! Whew!!

Dead: Edward Beveney

Rawle Munroe of Ann’s Grove, East Coast Demerara has been freed by the Demerara High Court on Tuesday after Justice Sandil Kissoon upheld a no-case submission made by defence attorney Teriq Mohammed. Munroe was charged with the capital offence of murder in relation to the May 26, 2018 death of Edward Beveney, a 23-year-old for-

Trial Judge Sandil Kissoon upheld the no-case submission, finding that Munroe acted in self-defence. Accordingly, he directed the jury to return a formal verdict of not guilty in favour of Munroe.

Edward Beveney of Ogle Street, Triumph, ECD sustained multiple stab wounds on his body following an altercation with Munroe over a bicycle on May 26, 2018. Reports are that Beveney had visited a shop earlier in the day, and had left his bicycle outside.

When he returned to pick up the bicycle, he was told that Munroe had moved it. As such, Beveney attacked Munroe, chopping him with a cutlass.

In retaliation, Munroe stabbed Beveney several times with an icepick.

Edward Beveney’s aunt Debbie Beveney, 52, while testifying, had said that on the day in question, she arrived at the Ogle Street, Triumph, ECD home she cohabited with her children and niece and nephew, and was doing chores around the home when, at about 07:00h, she heard a “noise” — it was someone shouting for her nephew by his call name “Kester”.

As such, Debbie said, she ran out of the house, and saw a crowd gathered on a bridge and her nephew staggering. He later fell on the ground, she added. According to her, upon examining her nephew, she observed a wound to his chest, and so she called out to him, but got no reply. She then called a taxi and took the injured man to the hospital.

Across the road from where she lived, Debbie recalled, she saw Munroe, whom she did not know prior to the day in question. Munroe, she testified, had an ice pick in his hand, and his body was covered in mud. Convinced he might have been the one who had inflict- ed the injuries on her nephew Edward, she said, she called out to persons, urging them to apprehend Munroe.

Back at the hospital, she said, her nephew was rushed for treatment, but, a few minutes later, a doctor informed her that “we just lost him”, meaning that he had died.

Under cross-examination by Munroe’s counsel, Debbie admitted that she did not see when Munroe inflicted injuries on her nephew. She also pointed out Munroe, who appeared in court virtually, as the man she had seen holding the ice pick while her nephew was on the ground bleeding.

Also testifying was Detective Police Constable Keon Burgess, who is stationed at the Kwakwani Police Station’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID). According to this witness, at the time of the murder, he was stationed at the Beterverwagting Police Station’s CID, where he performed the duties of a Crime Scene Technician.

At around 08:40h on the day in question, Constable Burgess recounted, he was summoned to the scene of an alleged murder, where he took photographs of a drain and a bridge. He said he also took photographs of the ice pick, and of Beveney’s body while it was at the mortuary. (G1)

But it wasn’t just the individual PM’s who talked tough. Caricom as a whole called out the world superpower – the US - on the guns they ship into the region. “(G)iven our observation that the gun has become the new drug, as articulated in our separate 18 April 2023 Declaration, we call on the US to reciprocate and join the Caribbean in its ‘War on Guns’.” Now you know things na regulah when puny CariCom’s not only willing to take on the US – but its most powerful gun lobby!! That $50billion a year industry’s dominated by a handful of big ones – who’re more untouchable than the mafia”!!

Can you imagine a “civilized” country where the majority of its citizens would die to defend their right to carry a gun?? And somebody gotta make those guns for them to carry around, no??

Now let’s see what happens after they got that outta their system!!

…the mornin’ after

After a bout of lovemaking some folks throw back with a cigarette and maybe think about what just happened! But after the lovefest that’s consummated by the political parties on Nomination Day, while Guyanese MAY take a pull on their cigarettes, they ALWAYS argue about who bested who!! To change the metaphor, if election day in Guyana is like a boxing match between heav-yweights, then Nomination Day’s like them coming out of their dressing rooms with their entou-rage!! A whole lot of strutting and shadow boxing!

The consensus on the street is that the PPP were definitely better prepared – and not only be-cause they had their red shirts ready!! They had the bodies to get into the shirts!! But then they’d unabashedly announced their strategy when they eased into government: get right into a literal “in your face” jabs at the PNC’s strongholds!! They then landed some body blows ; opened up the weak spots and we saw the results.

Total disarray in the PNC camp!!

…in song

Most Guynese channelin’ Sam Cooke: “It's been too hard living/ But I'm afraid to die/ 'Cause I don't know what's up there/ Beyond the sky/ It's been a long/ A long time coming, but I know/ A change gon' come/ Oh yes, it will”.