I wonder who Vibert Butts voted for?

NOVEMBER 27, 2015 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER FEATURES / COLUMNISTS, FREDDIE KISSOON

I was a young man on the Walter Rodney bandwagon in the mid-seventies when Vibert Butts earned the distinction of scoring the first World Cup goal for Guyana. To clarify, he scored the goal in one of the preliminary matches that would determine advancement to the World Cup. The goal was against Suriname. This week Butts was jailed for possession of marijuana and an additional charge that really gets me uncontrollably furious – possession of a smoking utensil. For the latter charge, he was jailed for a year Butts was unrepresented. At the time of sentencing, he was a football coach. Butts knew my brother, “Lightweight” Kissoon closely. They worked tirelessly for countless hours together to develop football in Lodge. If my brother was alive I know he would have asked me to get legal assistance for Butts. Had I known Butts was unrepresented I would have definitely secured an attorney for him. I would advise any poor family to beg or borrow, but get a lawyer when the punishment is severe as stipulated by law. I know a wash-bay employee who got forty- five consecutive years in the High Court on two counts of sexual molestation. When I read the court’s deposition I knew a lawyer would have been more effective than the accused who represented himself. Two grey areas stood out for me. There was a dispute about the girl’s age with no birth certificate tendered. Her birth was not registered. Can you imagine what a top criminal lawyer would have told that court? Simple! Prove to me she is underage? The second grey area is that in the state deposition, the girl admitted that she started having sex since she was twelve and could not name the boys she had sex with up to the time of the commencement of the trial. An appeal is made, so let’s leave it at that. Too many poor people’s lives are destroyed by incompetent magistrates because they did not have an attorney to represent them. The thing that people do not know about drug conviction is that the very law offers scope for punishment other than prison. There is the false impression that once found guilty, jail is mandatory. Special circumstances could be cited in terms of small possessions for community service. Some have benefited from that provision. Ironic it is that when Butts made the headlines, the magistrate wasn’t even born. Ironic that Butts must have created dozens of great Guyanese footballers, but what have some of our magistrates ever created or will ever create? One should question how well their legal talent would have served them in private practice. It is profoundly intriguing that the very day the newspapers published the sentence against Butts, the media was saturated with the long sentence of four men who, the trial transcript would reveal, were hired to kill an aging woman for her property. This case, known as the “Robb St. granny murder trial” makes a mockery of the celebration to come in May 2016 of 50 years of Independence. What was the Guyana Government thinking when it invited an unrepentant anarchist (anarchism as a philosophical school of thought) thinker like me to be part of the National Commemoration Commission? What am I supposed to celebrate? A country that jailed an 18-year-old girl for six months for taking a speedboat to cross the Corentyne to enter Suriname without going through immigration; an act that has been done millions of times and that is going on right now as I write? What am I supposed to say to Guyanese as a member of the National Commemoration Commission? That is alright for my country to jail young people at a tender age for the mere possession of a smoking utensil? What do I say to the children when the National Commemoration Commission goes to the schools? That we must be proud of our 50 years of Independence? There must be a reason to be proud of something. Enumerate for me our accomplishments that would cause a human-rights activist like me to enter a school and urge students to be respectful of our 50 years of social, cultural, economic, technological, scientific and sports accomplishments? I will have a lot more to say about the fifty-year journey that this country joined Dr. Faust in making to the kingdom of the devil, but for now, a lawyer should appeal the conviction of Vibert Butts. I wonder who Butts voted for in the May 2015 general elections, the PPP that had Lumumba who took care of all those soccer youths, or the PNC (not APNU) that has its own quota of protectors of soccer youths?