DC Karimbaksk should have left on his own

DC Karimbaksk should have left on his own

OPINION BY: GHK LALL- October 2026

The official word is that Deputy Comm of Police, Mr. Karimbaksh has been sent on leave.  A positive development, after what had to be severe turbulences inside the Guyana Police Command structure and, more importantly, the highest PPP Govt offices.  To send one man off is to take a risk.  Like senior politicians linked to a major ferry boat tragedy, so senior police officers named in an alleged felony, there’s risk.  Because they know so much, could reveal much.  It must never be seen as though the PPP Govt, having used these men, now abandons them to the wolves.

From the moment the allegation was leveled against him, the deputy commissioner had a choice.  Shelter in place, or leave on his own.  He made the wrong choice when he chose the former.  What a statement it would have made, without a word said, that a man under siege took a step towards higher ground.  He left the battlefield to his accuser and pursuers.  In staying, he may have made a consequential blunder.  I say this publicly, while going on the assumption of Comm Karimbaksh’s innocence.  He is entitled.  I deliver it to him.  Notwithstanding the power of noise that threatens to overwhelm all peripheral sounds, and has actually succeeded to a point.  Notwithstanding my own uncertainties.  I did it for Nigel Dharmalall, for Bharrat Jagdeo, for others of lesser nobility in the PPP aristocracy.  There’s appreciation that in today’s Guyana, these positions are virtually valueless.  I still believe in them, offer them, nevertheless.

It’s that there’s someone who will stand for the way that things ought to be, even when there’s anguish of how they are.  If I can still call Guyana’s president by name in dealing with national issues, it’s a lesser challenge to lobby that Mr. Karimbaksh is due all rights due to every Guyanese.  Unfortunately, this is PPP Guyana, so there isn’t much of a premium on that, beyond the traditional lip service.  In doing so, I am thinking of a victim in pain, one allegedly besmirched.  But I must also think of a senior police officer whose life just imploded, and in the worst public way. 

I hope that both parties to what is hurtful can emerge from their respective ordeals in one piece.  Some soul-searching, some self-adjustments, maybe even some self-corrections, where such are due.

In the wider national frame, the wish is that some lessons were learned.  By commissioner.  By minister.  By PPP Govt problem solvers.  By PPP Govt concealers.  The first step shouldn’t be erecting barricades.  The second shouldn’t be to see those seeking truth’s clarity, and sunlight’s frankness as enemies.  If for every alleged crime, all that’s seen are those bent on upturning the PPP applecart, then defensive coverup and a wall of silence are going to rule the way that Guyana exists, and dominate the standards that prevail.  Maybe the PPP applecart is too loaded.

When the commissioner of police silences himself, the long arm of the law is effectively reduced to operating with that arm winched to the back.  Seems like another expensive salvage operation may be necessary.  One of the principals in an alleged felony is a deputy commissioner not a deputy lance corporal.  The other is the weaker party in a power dynamic that has been the loser before antiquity. 

Thus, it is now beyond policies, procedures, and practices.  It is about a person.  Frankly, two of them now trapped in a cauldron at overheated temps and beyond their control.

The victim took a chance, trusted the system.  Maybe even trusted all that Excellency Ali spoke so lushly about, in the essence of one word.  Accountability.  The president attracts the odor of flimsy words.  The watchdogs, the safeguards, have an obligation to deliver works.  Works that attest to justice, however that pans out.  Empty words are given muscle by genuine works that lookout for Guyana’s weaker.  Or, Guyana’s wrongly accused.

Now, Comm Karimbaksh has left on forced leave.  I wish he had left on his own power, of his own volition, and confidence in the strength of his own position.