PYO wants probes to be widened
THE Progressive Youth Organisation (PYO) wants probes into incidents related to the public sector strike to be widened to cover street violence and terror in Georgetown earlier this year and last year. Under the preliminary agreement the unions and the Government have signed to end the strike which started April 29 last, the administration is to appoint a Commission of Inquiry into the Police shooting during a protest on Water Street on May 18, incidents at the Finance Ministry on June 10 and the Georgetown Hospital on May 21 and Police action at the Georgetown headquarters of the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) on June 16. The agreement states that it is "the understanding of the parties that the President of Guyana may at her discretion specify such other matters that she may consider proper" without prejudice to those referred to. In a statement yesterday, the PYO, youth arm of the People's Progressive Party (PPP), the main partner in the PPP/Civic Government, argued that the inquiry must be extended. "The PYO says to the administration that any Commission of Inquiry into the incidents on the streets of Georgetown during the past two weeks is inadequate to get behind the real issues and causation", the statement said. The organisation called on the Government to extend the probe to cover events of January and June last year and in March this year. "These incidents, which are tantamount to crimes against the state and people of Guyana, must not go unexposed." It contended that the findings of these probes "can assist us in moving forward and coming to terms with the setbacks this nation has experienced since the December 1997 elections." The PYO, praising Police efforts to protect citizens despite great odds, said certain organised groups and individuals "have been marauding in the streets of Georgetown" since the PPP/Civic victory at the 1997 elections. "At intervals, these elements carry out their dangerous and cowardly acts of robbery and violence, targeting law-abiding citizens, especially Indo-Guyanese", it said. The PYO said it was "no secret that recent unrest seems to have been manifestations of the stated political objectives of the PPP/Civic's opponents to make Guyana `ungovernable' and `hitting the government where it hurts most'." The street violence in Georgetown in the past three weeks has taken on characteristics similar to the street protests/violence of January and June, 1998 and March, 1999, it said. The youth group said those "involved in the recent street violence were also actively part of the earlier episodes of street terror." "Those with vulgar and dangerous political agendas must not be allowed to inflict serious harm on the nation's well-being with impunity", it said. 
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