Witness recounts attack on Kent Garment Factory bus -top Finance Ministry officials testify
The Commission of Enquiry into incidents during the 55-day public service strike resumed yesterday morning with the revisiting of the grenade throwing incident outside the Ministry of Finance on June 10. Testimony was also given on an attack on a Kent Garment Factory vehicle, which was said to have occurred the next day. Commissioner Justice Carl Singh has already heard related evidence on the grenade incident from several police officers, one of whom testified that the explosive had been thrown by a coconut water vendor whose face he recognised. Yesterday, the court heard testimony from Alan Gates, a real estate agent, who said that he had been outside the Ministry of Finance on the day in question and had seen a "long thin, dark arm" emerge from a crowd and throw an object. The witness admitted that he did not see the person to whom the arm was attached, but the crowd from which the arm emerged had earlier prevented him from entering the ministry to conduct business. Gates also introduced additional evidence, relating events he observed on June 11, a day after the grenade incident. Led by Counsel to the Commission, Mortimer Cumberbatch, Gates disclosed that he had been on Regent Street on that day when he saw five groups of men in the vicinity of the Guyoil Service Station. He recalled that the young men had been armed with bricks and bottles but that they had begun running in different directions as a squad of Tactical Services Unit officers had just entered the street. They then began to pull vendor's stalls onto the road and block the streets and Gates testified to hearing one man, whom he described as a "road element" he had seen on various occasions, saying "Leh we bun de city down." Members of the group then started to set fire to the stalls and according to Gates, they began stoning the police after being ordered to disperse. The police opened fire with tear-gas and Gates said that both he and the men ran away. Gates said that he ran in the direction of the Industry mini-bus park, where he saw the groups of men again. This time, Gates said, they approached a vehicle with "Kent Garment Factory" marked on the side and placed themselves in its path causing it to stop. Gates said that the occupants, whom he described as Indo-Guyanese women, were ordered out by the men and some of them complied by jumping out of windows. Gates said that the women took off running east along Robb Street, crying and screaming, with the men in "hot pursuit". According to Gates, the police arrived three to five minutes later and drove behind the bus as if to escort it, while trying to ensure that those who had run away would return. Next to testify was Deputy Secretary to the Treasury, Mahase Pertab. He gave evidence about the early days of the strike when on occasion marching public servants had prompted him to issue orders that the Finance Ministry gates should be closed. He said that on April 29, First Vice-President of the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU), Dr Anwar Hussein, had entered the building and ordered staff who were not on strike to come out and join a crowd outside the building. Pertab said that Dr Hussein's tone had been loud, and that when he approached him, the doctor had verbally abused him. "All yuh traitors don't want to come out but all ah yuh gone benefit," were the words Pertab testified Dr Hussein had used. Dr Hussein was then said to have approached the deputy secretary in a "menacing manner" prompting Pertab to call security who then escorted the union official out of the compound. None of the workers inside had heeded Dr Hussein's order, Pertab said. Pertab also testified about an earlier incident, on May 19. He said that he had been on the platform of the Finance Ministry building and had seen an object appear in the air from a section of a large crowd which was gathered outside the compound. Pertab said that the object landed on a car in the compound before hitting the ground and when it did smoke started to come from it. He recalled feeling a burning sensation on his face and said that at that point, "pandemonium" broke out in the ministry with all the workers who had been in that part of the building running to the back. Pertab said he later learned that the smoke had been tear smoke, and that a security guard had been affected by the smoke and had to be taken away. The court yesterday also heard testimony from Accountant General at the Ministry of Finance, Edward Layne, who said that police ranks had demonstrated a lot of patience in dealing with crowds that had taken to gathering around the ministry. He said that on a number of occasions the gates had been padlocked with strange padlocks and that on one such occasion the security guards had informed him that the locks had been placed by two men in a white car, the number plate of which he had been given but had failed to record. Layne testified that at one point he saw a man from a crowd take out a key unlock a padlock and take it away in the full view of policemen who did nothing. He also told the court that his own security had offered no satisfactory explanation as to why they had not stopped the men from locking the gates, while Commissioner of Police, Laurie Lewis, had told him that he had given orders for such locks to be destroyed. He said that as a result of the constant presence of the crowd he had had to institute a system whereby workers would report to work at 0700 hrs so as to get in. The commission's next sitting will be on Monday when Justice Singh will hear the continuation of Pertab's testimony as well as from some other Ministry of Finance officials.
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