A/HRC/10/11/Add.2 page 21 wholesale destruction of village farmland, which were purportedly sheltering criminals. The joint services are widely blamed within the community for exchanges of gunfire resulting in deaths of innocent civilians. 69. The security services have been severely criticized by all groups. Indo-Guyanese staged protests following the Lusignan massacre, claiming that the predominantly Afro-Guyanese forces were failing in their duty to protect the Indian community or bring perpetrators to justice. 70. NGOs and community members raised concerns regarding serious rights violations against Afro-Guyanese including arbitrary detention without trial, torture, deaths and mistreatment in custody, and killings of innocent civilians during operations by the joint services. Restrictions on media access and freedom of expression were also highlighted. It is claimed that, taken as a whole, these evidence a wider pattern and practice of gross rights violations against Afro-Guyanese and a failure of due process and the rule of law. 71. The Government acknowledges that periods of electoral and criminal violence have terrified people of all ethnic, class, religious and political persuasion. Violent crime and violent gangs which terrorized the country from 2002-2008 were sparked by a 2002 prison break and were the cause of fear and terror.24 Notorious gangs killed and maimed over 500 people within a six-year period. The gangs were to a majority, but not exclusively, Afro-Guyanese,25 and terrorized communities. It notes that an overwhelming and broad-based appeal for the Government to stop the violence, especially after the Lusignan and Bartica massacres, led to the birth of the National Stakeholders Forum in February 2008, led by the President himself. 72. The Government asserts that the Joint Services acted on the urging of the National Stakeholders Forum convened by the President in March 2008, to rout the criminals out from their safe havens. Machines were brought in to legitimately clear land in Buxton used as a refuge for criminals. A farmers’ committee in Buxton was formed which worked with the Ministry of Agriculture where they received compensation, fertilizers and seeds to allow them to return to their farming area. 73. The Government totally rejects all accusations of torture, of operating covert death squads and of collusion with criminal elements to kill Afro-Guyanese individuals. It highlights the legitimate need to conduct security operations against criminal elements such as the “Fineman” gang, believed to be implicated in the Lusignan and Bartica massacres. It emphasizes that certain Afro-Guyanese gangs are embedded in communities such as Buxton, and that this is what necessitates concerted joint services operations in such localities. The Government acknowledges civilian deaths but lays the blame on gang members operating out of civilian areas. It notes that two persons were apprehended in connection with the Lusignan massacre and 24 The President through Parliament appointed a special commission of inquiry into the Disciplined Forces in 2003-2004. This Commission met and held hearings and took evidence. Its report tabled in the National Assembly in 2004 was put before a Parliamentary Special Select Committee in the 8th and now the 9th Parliament. 25 The Government notes that it has never referred to gangs as “Afro-Guyanese”.