US demands Guyana investigation

The United States has called for Guyana to investigate reports that members of the security forces murdered hundreds of people in the last 17 years.



US Charge d'Affaires Karen Williams says necessary steps should be taken to ensure that human rights are observed and protected.



The American diplomat said the government's investigation should be thorough, and where persons are found to have violated people’s rights they should be prosecuted.



Last November opposition political parties in Guyana released a file listing 449 alleged extra-judicial killings in the country between 1993 and 2009.

Many of the killings have been blamed on an elite police unit called the Black Clothes squad.



The report also accused the government of equipping and employing the Phantom Squad, a gang of killers in an attempt to control a cocaine trade-fuelled crime wave in 2002.