Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has announced that the Government will soon be launching a Commission of Inquiry in the crime spree and killings of the early 2000’s during the period known as “The Troubles”.

Jagdeo was President at the time when the country saw daily murders and execution style killings of hundreds of young men.

Mr. Jagdeo denied any involvement of his Government and said that many of the people who died during the crime wave were from various ethnic backgrounds and many were not linked to criminal activity.

Mr. Jagdeo said the Government intends to get to the bottom of the events during that period and a Commission of Inquiry will soon be announced by the President.

“It came up at the human rights body, when we went there which is every 10 years you have to go there and the issue came up about when we are going to do this (COI) and the terms of reference are being drafted and soon the President will announce the COI, so we will get to the bottom of this,” Mr.Jagdeo told a press conference this week.

The allegation of the killing of hundreds of youths by a death squad and by the Police has been haunting and following the PPP for over two decades. It was a period under Mr. Jagdeo’s Presidency when drug and phantom gangs were prevalent in the country.

The US Department of State’s annual Country Report on Human Rights Practices during that period iterated that “The most significant reported abuses included potentially unlawful killings by police..public investigations rarely are conducted into such killings and police abuses are committed with impunity.”

But Mr. Jagdeo described the re-emergence of the issue has racist undertones.

“They are raising back the old race thing, I notice they are saying that it is 1,500 young black men that we killed, the racist issue again to bring back the old rumor that they spread which has been disapproved over and over again but they will continue to perpetuate the lies,” Mr. Jagdeo stated.

The UN Human Rights Committee had made 22 recommendations to the PPPC administration at the time, including a call for a prompt investigation by an impartial body into the extrajudicial killings and the excessive use of force by the Police.

Almost 25 years later, the probe is still to take place.

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