Rastafari Council

Press Release

02-02-2006

 

 

The Guyana Rastafari Council joins with those who mourn the brutal execution of Professional Journalist and Political Activist, Ronald Waddell. His execution occurred at a critical juncture in our history, a time when Africans the world over take a month to reflect on the struggles and achievements of our predecessors. While we begin to mourn the atrocities committed to millions of Africans during the worst system of slavery known to man, another brother has fallen to a system that is no less inimical and horrendous in its nature. It is as if our Armageddon continues.

 

The death of this Professional Journalist and Political activist portends a disastrous and ghastly future. After all, it is only a country that is heading towards anarchy or Machiavelli-type rule that such savage incidents could repeatedly occur without anyone being brought to justice.

 

The GRC expresses concern for the future of Guyana and is convinced that no group of people ethnic or otherwise can afford to be taciturn and tight-lipped. If we raise our collective voices against injustices wherever it is found, if we demand a stop to the wanton execution of our citizens in spite of their ethnicity and in spite of who are the perpetrators and if we do so on a wholly impartial basis, we can raise our country out of the morass of political corruption, crime and ethnic polarization and also halt its retrogression.

 

The Guyana Rastafari Council takes this opportunity to call upon the Guyana Police Force to use all the available means and techniques to speedily bring about a conclusion to this and other unsolved executions, hoping it would not allow itself to become the playing piece of any political or other narrow interest groups.

 

Noting a recurring attempt by the media to legitimize the death of many Africans and Rastafarians by associating them with drugs and criminal activities, the GRC condemns the Media’s attempt to associate Mr. Waddell with gangs in Buxton. Ronald Waddell was defiant of course, he was a political radical and a thorn in the flesh of the administration; he was many other things with which the administration felt uncomfortable, but he was far from being a gangster or criminal.

 

In concluding, the GRC also call upon civil society and human rights groups not to mitigate their call for the administering of justice in the case of Waddell’s death.