Derek Achong

Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Mar­tin Mar­tinez says he sup­ports his of­fi­cers' protest ac­tion over the mur­der and shoot­ing of two of their col­leagues in the past week.Mar­tinez gave the com­ment in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, in re­sponse to re­ports that of­fi­cers of the Re­mand Yard fa­cil­i­ty at the Gold­en Grove prison in Arou­ca were en­gaged in a "go slow" protest.

"What­ev­er the cir­cum­stances, my of­fi­cers will be in­deed trau­ma­tised. One will not ex­pect, there­fore, that it will be busi­ness as usu­al," Mar­tinez said.He said the ac­tion was not un­rea­son­able as he thinks sim­i­lar ac­tion would be take by oth­er arms of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices in the same cir­cum­stances.Mar­tinez al­so de­nied me­dia re­ports from pris­on­ers who claimed that they had not been fed since the protest be­gan over the week­end.

"That is not true; the pris­on­ers are be­ing fed. We are not starv­ing in­mates at all. They are be­ing tak­en care of," Mar­tinez said.He said he be­lieved that the re­cent vi­o­lent acts against his of­fi­cers were be­cause of their ef­forts to in­still dis­ci­pline and strict­ly en­force rules at the na­tion's pris­ons.

"Prison of­fi­cers have been marked for death by the crim­i­nal un­der­world be­cause they bring­ing pos­i­tive change to the Pris­ons Ser­vice and they stop­ping con­tra­band from en­ter­ing. They (the of­fi­cers) are stop­ping the un­der­world econ­o­my in the prison and they (the pris­on­ers) want to run their rack­et," Mar­tinez said.

Last week Thurs­day, pris­ons of­fi­cer Andy Rogers was shot 20 times at a con­struc­tion site at Daniel Trace, Mal­abar, Ari­ma. Po­lice sources said that Roger's death may be as a re­sult of a re­la­tion­ship he had with a pris­on­er's rel­a­tive.On Mon­day, an­oth­er of­fi­cer, Kr­ish­na Mer­hair, of Tu­na­puna Road, Tu­na­puna, was shot near his home.He sur­vived the at­tack.Com­ment­ing on Rodger's death, Mar­tinez said what­ev­er the cir­cum­stances be­hind it, it should not be triv­i­alised.

"If peo­ple con­tin­ue to triv­i­alise these things, the prison would be­come un­govern­able," Mar­tinez warned.Mar­tinez said that some time be­fore his mur­der, Rogers be­gan re­ceiv­ing death threats and was is­sued to a firearm for pro­tec­tion."I am con­vinced, as Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er, that his death arose di­rect­ly as a re­sult of the per­for­mance of his du­ties," Mar­tinez said.

He said Rogers re­turned the firearm when he was go­ing over­seas. How­ev­er, it was not giv­en back to him when he re­turned be­cause pris­ons au­thories were in­ves­ti­gat­ing re­ports of threats made to his fe­male com­pan­ion."We in­struct­ed that the of­fi­cer not be al­lowed to re­trieve his firearm un­til an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. That is why he (Rogers) was un­armed," Mar­tinez said.

He said that he met with Min­is­ter of Jus­tice Em­manuel George yes­ter­day morn­ing to help de­vel­op ini­tia­tives that will pro­tect his of­fi­cers. He said that he planned to meet with the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to dis­cuss sim­i­lar ini­tia­tives.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion Ceron Richards said his or­gan­i­sa­tion agreed with Mar­tinez's com­ments and would con­tin­ue their protest ac­tion un­til the Gov­ern­ment in­ter­venes to ad­dress the health and safe­ty con­cerns of the of­fi­cers."The of­fi­cers are not go­ing to sup­port the State if it has no in­ter­est in their health and safe­ty," Richards said.

Richards ex­plained that of­fi­cers at the Gold­en Grove prison were re­port­ing for du­ty but were re­fus­ing to en­ter the prison. He said all as­pects of prison op­er­a­tions had been ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed, in­clud­ing pris­on­ers' trans­port."It seems to me that the State is to­tal­ly un­in­ter­est­ed in meet­ing and treat­ing with the plight of pris­ons of­fi­cers." Richards said.