Dear Editor,
“He said the two male Africans were identified by two Prison Officers as wanted men Rondell Rawlins, called ‘Fineman’ and Jermaine Charles, called ‘Skinny.’” This is one of two paragraphs which appeared within the lead story of Friday’s Guyana Chronicle.

Was ‘Fineman’ from Africa?  All along we were led to believe he was Guyanese. An earlier paragraph in the same story read: “‘On descending upon the scene, they [the ranks] found the body of a male African lying on the ground. He was picked up and rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation where he was pronounced dead on arrival,’ Greene told reporters.”

I am curious to know whether ‘Fineman’ and some of his henchmen were indeed from Africa. Was this gang getting assistance from Africa in the form of “freedom fighters?”

Within certain circles in the US there was a rumour circulating recently that the Guyana Government had recruited “bounty hunters” from Israel and Pakistan to hunt down ‘Fineman’ and his gang. While not much credence was given to this rumour, the report of Africans being killed suggests that this gang was not made up only of Guyanese, and it now makes one wonder whether this whole situation has taken on an international dimension.

If in fact ‘Fineman’ and his cohorts are Guyanese then the Commissioner, if quoted accurately, made a significant mistake and should not have attempted to identify the ethnicity of the dead men. Do the police media bulletins in Guyana as a rule make reference to the ethnic background of persons killed, arrested or who are the victims of crime?

In this case the issue of race was introduced into a very sensitive national problem.
Yours faithfully,
Wesley Kirton