Following a hotly contested election, the murders of three Guyanese teenagers have sparked renewed racial tensions in Guyana between the country’s two main ethnic groups, Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese. This comes as the world is having a broader conversation on racial justice, which was sparked by the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in May.
The bodies of Afro-Guyanese teenagers Isaiah and Joel Henry were found mutilated in coconut fields in the Mahaica-Berbice region on Sept. 6. Haresh Singh, an Indo-Guyanese teenager, was killed three days later while trying to pass through a protest that had started in response to the initial murders.
“I will work day and night to get to the bottom of what happened to those teens,” President Irfaan Ali said in a press release. “Safety and security in all of the communities remain a top priority. As you can see, there is more visibility on the ground, more resources on the ground … We cannot tolerate lawlessness and criminality. We have to fix what went wrong and move forward.”
Volda Lawrence, chairperson of the political party People’s National Congress Reform, released a statement condemning the racist murders and stating that racism cannot be combated with more racism.
“My brothers and sisters, our protest must not end until justice is served,” Lawrence said. “I am resolute in my stance to go the full mile with you, until we achieve our desired outcome, justice. But we must protest in a peaceful and civil manner, doing so with respect for human life, dignity and property. Our protest must be solution-oriented and not driven by chaos, violence and destruction. For those that have utilized violence or caused destruction, please refrain from such acts as we seek justice for those who were taken from us.”
In response to the three racially motivated murders, the Guyana Human Rights Association plans to submit a formal request for the United Nations to investigate the killings with forensic pathology.
“This call is not intended to cast doubt on the capacity or impartiality of local investigators, so much as a response to the deep distrust accompanying the political polarization of the society,” the organization said in a statement on Sept. 8. “These callous murders are not seen as isolated. Both sides are quick to see them as a continuation of earlier ethnic upheavals … Both sides feel accumulated bitterness towards a system that has accommodated such turmoil.”
The protests surrounding the murders parallel those around the world in support of racial equality. Hundreds of thousands of people globally have continued to protest in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery earlier this year. This has since inspired activists to broaden the movement, highlighting other instances of racial injustice in their own communities including police brutality against Indigenous Australians.
What differs in the case of Guyana is that while racism has been an issue in the country since its inception, tensions have increased following massive oil discoveries and the election of President Ali in March.
The discovery of oil off the coast of Guyana has set the country on course to expand its economy by 50% by the end of 2020, which would give it the fastest-growing economy in the world in a time when a global recession looms due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The presidential race, which was between then-incumbent David Granger, who was backed by Afro-Guyanese supporters, and Ali, who is now South America’s first Muslim head of state and was backed by Indo-Guyanese supporters, centered around racializing the oil discoveries by both candidates claiming that their supporters would lose out on profits if the other candidate was elected.
Deodat Persaud, a member of Guyana’s Ethnic Relations Committee, told The New York Times that “racism is connected to political power in Guyana.”
In the week that has followed since the initial murders, President Ali has visited with the families of all three slain teenagers and has ordered the government to begin enforcing the Racial Hostility Act and the Cybercrime Act in an effort to crack down on virtual hate speech.
Jacob Sutherland
Jacob is a recent graduate from the University of California San Diego where he majored in Political Science and minored in Spanish Language Studies. He previously served as the News Editor for The UCSD Guardian, and hopes to shed light on social justice issues in his work.