| “I am responsible for making the Kwame/Julius tape,” admitted Mark Benschop, Head of the Benschop Foundation yesterday when he along with three others picketed the Human Services and Social Security Ministry.According to Benschop, although he has made it public that he facilitated the creation of the tape the police have not requested his assistance to investigate the very serious matter. “They haven’t come to me and I am willing to cooperate with them. I can tell them exactly what transpired.“The fact that the family came to me to complain about the interference from Kwame McCoy shows that they don’t have any trust in the police or even the government for that matter.” According to Benschop, the mother of the teenaged boy recorded on the tape,Basket Jordan Junior Soldes, had expressed concern and cannot come to terms with the fact that President Bharrat Jagdeo is allowing sexual predators to walk through the hallways of the Office of the President.And given the fact that McCoy who has been implicated in the tape was expected to return to Guyana after a short stay in Brazil yesterday, Benschop, Newspaper Columnist, Frederick Kissoon; Trade Unionists Lincoln Lewis and Norris Witter engaged the picket action.According to Benschop, “We are very concerned that Priya Manickchand has been quiet on this issue. She was quiet when Jagdeo’s wife complained about him and she is quiet now when people are convinced that it is the voice of Kwame McCoy on the tape with the 15-year-old boy…So she must speak out…”Benschop and his cohorts were unanimous in their cries that McCoy must not be allowed to continue as Press Liaison Officer to the President or Commissioner of the Rights of the Child Commission.“All of these positions he holds require tax payers’ money. Why is the president so quiet? We are intensifying this action.”The situation, according to Lewis, must be addressed forthwith as the government has signed on to the whole question of child labour through the ILO Convention of the Rights of a Child. He pointed out that child labour is one of the areas targeted in the quest to address poverty in general.Lewis noted,Air Jordan Pas Cher France, “If at this juncture you have a child being molested by an adult it is time the government take note and seek to address the question of sexual predators attacking children, particularly young boys.”Lewis highlighted that it is a known fact that persons are involved in prostituting young girls even moving them across borders in such programmes. But according to Lewis when a Government Officer,Jordan Retro 10 Noir, from all indications,Wholesale Shoes China, is implicated in soliciting sex from a young boy it is especially crucial for the administration to take immediate action.“A young boy is being targeted and we know there are more besides him and it is time that Government take note and address it. Measures must be put in place to address exploitation in this country.”The solicitation of sexual favour by an adult from a minor is in fact a wider matter, said Acting General Secretary of the Guyana Trade Union Congress, Norris Witter. He stressed, “To us it is a synopsis of the state to which Guyana has descended.”Witter underscored that when one takes into account that the Government official at the helm of the sexual controversy in question is not only the Liaison Officer to the president but also a Commissioner on the Rights of the Child Commission, through the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, it is very disturbing.“This matter raises some very serious questions as it relates to the decency of the Jagdeo regime…”Kissoon said,Jordan 10 Retro Pas Cher, though,Jordan 12 Femme Pas Cher, that the picketing exercise is merely the beginning of an ongoing process of demonstration against elected dictatorship even as he emphasised his conviction that “this country is just beyond belief in terms of loss of freedom among other things.” According to Kissoon, he and his picketing colleagues have been discussing the lack of demonstrative action against elected dictatorship and therefore decided that they would start with a few and hope that the Guyanese people would follow suit.The picketing exercise attracted the attention many passers-by in the city as it did a jeep load of police ranks who after disembarking positioned themselves at strategic points to monitor the peaceful picketing exercise. |
