THE Bacchus saga seems to be going nowhere because of all the issues that tended to cloud the real issue. To make matters worse, George Bacchus is now dead. Whatever he happened to have said during his lifetime, the allegations he made and the affidavits he signed, all mean nothing.
To begin with, he cannot now be cross-examined on the affidavits, so whatever weight they might have carried when he signed them, has been diminished.
He made allegations against the Home Affairs Minister soon after his brother died. A few weeks ago, he recanted only to revert to the original story not long after. This caused people to think that he might have lied in the first instance. Of course, he admitted that he lied but he insisted that his first charges were accurate. All that means nothing now. Here now, we have to examine the role of the People’s National Congress Reform that secured the affidavit in the first instance. Why did that party not forward the affidavit as soon as Bacchus signed them because there were two?
The party handed them over to the police when he died and sparked an investigation. That investigation could have gotten underway earlier and Bacchus would have been given an opportunity to defend his affidavit.
It is now public knowledge that the people he fingered in his affidavit have denied knowledge of everything that Bacchus accused them of, and Bacchus is not there for any confrontation or whatever it would have taken to enhance the contents of the affidavit.
It is not our duty to question the reason for the PNCR to hold on to the affidavit. Perhaps the party was hoping to use them in the Presidential Commission of Inquiry. Now even that means nothing because, while the affidavit may be presented, it is for the commission to accept or ignore the allegations. We are certain that the party has more affidavits and we are certain that these have not been handed over to the police. If that is the case, why is the party keeping these other affidavits, knowing what happened in the case of George Bacchus?
One cannot use the excuse that the police have no locus standi in any such investigations. The Commissioner of Police did say that he did not think that the police were the best people to conduct any investigation into allegations of the death squad. But circumstances have long since changed that comment, given that there seems to be no other forum to conduct any such investigation. In fact, the Bacchus’s affidavit forced the police to get involved. We know that some of the people named in the affidavits were detained and questioned by the police. We also know that the police are determined to get to those in their ranks who might have been tainted by the allegations.
That being the case, there are other civilians who could finger the criminal elements in the police force that acted extra judicially and out of context with their role. These people should take heart that the police seem to be bent on uncovering any illegality in their ranks.
Yet these people seem reluctant to come forward. They cite the fear of retaliation. However, we hasten to point out that their silence is not going to effect a change for the better. In the first instance, their silence was what encouraged the crime wave and allowed people to act with impunity when they went about their nefarious activities. By their silence, those with information created untold hardships for the rest of the society.
Buxton, once the safe haven for bandits, has spawned a group of people who want to see an end to the criminality that plagued the village. Residents are informing the police of any criminal or criminal act in the community.
There was a time when the very Buxtonians were loath to talk to the police. That has changed. The Buxtonians are growing to trust the police largely because of the change in the administration. This is a change for the better. The rest of the society should come forward with whatever information they have and this does not exclude the PNCR.
That has been the party calling the loudest for an end to the lawlessness spawned by the so-called death squad. Withholding information from the investigating arm of the government has not done any good.