The opposition coalition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) on Wednesday said it planned to push for a commission of inquiry into the December 6 police shooting of protesters on a peaceful march that the police deemed illegal.

The Guyana Police Force has already defended its decision to open fire on the estimated 500 persons Tuesday morning as they approached Hadfield Street and Louisa Row.

Attorney-at-Law, James Bond, whose back was burst in several places by rubber bullets, says a probe will help set the ground-rules for police to engage protesters in the future.

“It will set out standard operating procedures for how riot squads treat persons when they are protesting,” said Bond during a break in leading a chant against the Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee outside his Brickdam office.

If government gives the green-light for a such a probe by a judge or other fair-minded person, Bond wants the recommendations to be dispatched to the Guyana Defence Force and the Guyana Prison Service in engaging protesters.

Several protesters opposite the Home Affairs Ministry.

Police, in a statement on Wednesday, stopped short of expressing regret at the shooting of the protesters who were pressing APNU’s case for a reconciliation of the Statements of Poll in the November 28 general and regional elections to address its claims of rigging and other irregularities.

“It was most unfortunate that persons were shot, though not seriously injured, and reports have stated that children were discomfited and inconvenienced in schools in the areas of operation,” said police spokesman, Ivelaw Whittaker. The police force denied firing teargas at the crowd.

The 12 injured also included Retired Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), Brigadier Edward Collins, several elderly persons and one child. Nine persons, including Collins and Bond, were arrested Tuesday and later freed without cash bail.

APNU youth activist, Bond, however, charged that the point-blank close range shooting at the protesters amounted to a human rights violation that must be investigated.

“We believe that we must get to the bottom of who ordered the shooting, who ordered this act of barbarity," said Bond.

He expressed surprise at the apparent silence of the Guyana Bar Association (GBA) on the incident. "That the Guyana Bar Association is silent when one of its own is shot down in the streets is kind of alarming," he said.

The GBA, Guyana Human Rights Association and the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) have all condemned the police action.

Bond denies that the protesters pushed past a human barricade of members of the police force in the vicinity of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) and attempted to again do so near Hadfield Street and Louisa Row when the police opened fire. Police had repeatedly told senior and junior organizers that no permission had been granted for a march and that their gathering at the Square of the Revolution had amounted to unlawful assembly. Before police opened fire, the protesters were twice called upon on loud-hailers to disperse and go to their lawful places of business.

But Bond said the persons were dispersing quietly and orderly from the Square of the Revolution when police fired the rubber bullets at them. He said they had intended to walk a short distance and eventually re-assemble at Congress Place- the headquarters of the Peoples National Congress Reform (PNCR), APNU’s major partner.

During Wednesday's picketing exercise outside the Home Affairs Ministry by at least 170 persons, they chanted "What we want, Justice," and  "Rohee Must Go". They also held placards that read, among other slogans," "Rohee you are an abysmal failure!", "Police brutality must stop," "We demand an inquiry into Dec 6th shootings," and "Home Affairs Ministry gets a big big F".