Eight diamond miners are believed to have been killed at Lindo Creek, located 10 miles downriver from Christmas Falls where wanted man Rondel ‘Fineman’ Rawlins and his gang had earlier been hiding out.
Among the dead are thought to be the son and brother of the Lindo Creek dredge owner, George Arokium – Dax, 28, and Cedric Arokium, 46. According to George, the names of the other men are Kampton ‘Tona’ Spiers and Drakes of Meten-Meer-Zorg, Berry Wong, Lancely ‘Piggy’ of Tucville, ‘Bonny’ Harry of Annandale and a teenager from Kwakwani.
George told Stabroek News that on Wednesday night he had received a phone call from a woman who told him that some “soldiers” had shot and killed his men and burnt their bodies. Later, he said, he received a second phone call from a private number. This time, George explained, it was a man calling who told him the same thing.
The dredge owner recounted that he arrived at his camp some time between 7 am and 7.45 am yesterday morning. “Skulls and bones,” he repeated at intervals as he described what he had seen. He said that the entire camp was in a state of disarray.
He said someone in the area told him that they had heard shots several days prior to his arrival there.
George maintained that it was indeed the remains of his men he had seen at the camp. “Eight men cannot be accounted for in the area and it is logical for me to think they are my men,” he said.
He described the camping site as having two main areas – the kitchen and another tent for sleeping. The tarpaulin roof was missing from the tent where the miners slept, George said, and he suspected that the eight men had been wrapped in the tarpaulin and their bodies burnt.
Stabroek News understands that the men who killed the miners were dressed in camouflage uniforms. During the five minutes that he spent at the scene, George said, he was not able to determine whether anything was missing from the camp although he assumed that the men had been robbed.
When Stabroek News arrived at the Arokiums’ South Ruimveldt Park home shortly after 7 pm yesterday, a number of friends and relatives had already gathered. Dean Arokium, Dax’s brother, was directing the preparations for a wake while being updated by his father on the telephone at intervals.
He told this newspaper that his father had left on Friday to travel to the Lindo Creek location.
According to Dean, his father said he could not bear the sight before him when he arrived at the scene and told the men who had accompanied him to cover the men’s remains. George, Dean said, then left the camp to travel back to Georgetown.
When this newspaper spoke to George later yesterday evening, he explained that he had arrived at a camp some four miles away from his at 2 am yesterday, and had slept there until 6.30 am, thereafter making his way to the Lindo Creek site.
Dean said that his brother had left behind his pregnant girlfriend, while his uncle Cedric leaves to mourn his wife and two teenage daughters.
“This ugly, this real ugly though,” a friend of the Arokiums was heard repeating.
Dean was overheard saying, “A whole set of army and CID [Criminal Investigation Department] people only calling and asking wha happen.”
Up to press time the police had made no statement on the matter.
Joint Services ranks recently killed a man, suspected be a member of a gang including wanted man Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins, after they were attacked in the Christmas Falls area some 300 miles up the Berbice River.
According to a Joint Services press release, around 7:00 hrs on Friday, June 13, ranks while on patrol in the Berbice River community encountered a gang of about six persons.
It added that the patrol had come under fire, returned fire and a gang member had been subsequently killed.
The release said other gang members who included wanted men ‘Fineman’; Cecilo Simeon Ramcharran called ‘Uncle Willie’; ‘Magic’; and ‘Chung Boy’ among others, escaped down a slope and disappeared into the jungle. Trails of blood found suggested that others had been injured, the statement added.
‘Uncle Willie’ and ‘Chung Boy’ were subsequently killed at Goat Farm in the Berbice River.
The Joint Services said the Christmas Falls camp had “four buildings in a desolate area in the jungle and foodstuff to last several weeks in a large kitchen, which also had a gas stove, generator and solar energy. In addition, there were six portable tents, four hammocks, three mattresses, a mini-stereo system, a DVD player, a cell phone, a hand-held radio set, items of clothing, medical supplies and a bible which were abandoned by the gang.” (Sarah Bharrat)
Let the blame game start as who did it. Remember dead men tell no tales.Let us see how fast s balastic test cn be done to determine who to blame any delay would cast doubt as to who is the responsible party. Those of you who know about the Vietnam war would remember Me=Lai.
Please let me make the typical ‘knee-jerk’ reaction which readers tend to make after articles like this.
1 These killings are just SMOKESCREENS and fabrications by the Forces. No pictures of skulls or bones are shown for example so this is all just a plant.
2 The Government is in real hot water over the Rodger Khan case so it is flailing about trying to take the people’s attention off Khan by stoking up the spectre of Fineman.
3 Furthermore, Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins was seen yesterday in New York trying to sell his diaries to publishers.
4 Simeon Ramcharran and ‘Chung Boy’ do not even exist.
How sad for all of Guyana that a mini-army is running amok in the jungle and people from within normal civilised Guyanese society are trying to supply them with essential supplies and ongoing information by direct mobile-phone communication.
is this in refrence to the topic stated above ? would you like to experience what that man discovered? you need help.
How do we know they were not killed by the trigger happy forces?
Afterall they shoot first and and never ask questions after!
This reeks skyhigh and back.
THIS SAME THING HAPPENED BACK IN THE 80′S WHEN THEY WERE HUNTING EYELASH AND ROBERT RAMKARAN BUT THEN THEY HAD A NEWS BLACK OUT SO THOSE EVENTS NEVER MADE THE NEWS
I don’t believe the criminals would have burnt the bodies – smoke would have attracted attention… i believe somebody killed the wrong set of people and tried to cover up or at least distort the evidence. Remember the info that the GPF keeps givingout is to the effect that they were looking for a group of about 6-8 persons camped out in the jungle. This group unfortunately was so profiled. it’s very unfortunate that they were the wrong set of people. Moreover, when the right group was discovered, they managed to escape but not before they were properly (and accurately) identified this time around as Fineman et al.
here we go again
no mention of police in article..did they go check out the scene? i hope so
you hear what the owner say he don t know who to trust
THIS STORY SOUND LITTLE PUZZLING, COULD THE JOINT FORCES HAVE SWOOP DOWN ON THE WRONG PEOPLE KILLING THEM THINKING IT’S FINEMAN’S GANG?
good question
That is the most plausible explanation of what took place there. The law enforcers made a big mistake and I feared that would have happened given the amount of mining and logging camps and activities in all the areas north of goat farm.
Further, Fineman seem to know that area more than the army. He and his men left Christmas falls and came south to Goat Farm. The only reason I see for that is his intention to hook up with the old cattle trail from Ibini to Karasabi which passes through the Goat Farm area. Fineman maybe heading to the Rupununni and he will encounter a lot of logging activities
It’s a strong possibility.
It could be so for the Joint Forces claimed killing “Chung Boy & “Uncle Willy” 90 miles from Christmas Falls so how come these eight men are now killed 9 miles from Christmas Falls. I guess they forgot their Credit Cards etc.etc.
The truth will unfold, no matter how long it takes
This is unreal, but was inevitable. The police killed criminals; cowardly criminals kill unarmed civilians, and it could happen again, sad to say. The reality is that these men left their homes to earn a living. Instead of going around robbing people, they choose to go into the wilderness just to earn a decent living. They may have parents, they may have wives, they may have kids; people that depened on them, people that cared about them. Whats life like for them here on.
My father once worked in the interior and I don’t know how I would have felt if he had faced such fate. I know for sure that my life would have changed forever.
I so wish this report is inaccurate.
On Monday June 16th when the gunmen commandeered the bus at Goat Farm along the Aroaima Ituni trail the passengers were told by the gunmen that the police and soldiers had attacked miners in a camp up the Berbice River and killed all of the occupants and burnt their bodies. It appears that this matter is now coming to light. The passengers in the bus claimed that the gunmen asked for food, took their cellphones, did not rob them of any money and was very kind to the children. They also told of this incident now being reported. I think this matter needs to be fully investigated by the press and the GHRA not the police or the army. If this camp is situated ten miles north of Christmas Falls then the military would have had to pass that camp to reach to Christmas Fall. There is air surveillance by helicopter and the area was cordoned off for a full two weeks why was this discovery not made by the military before? Why did it have to be the owner of the operation who had to travel there to make that discovery when dozens of troops were searching that area?
You are absolutely correct Victor. I understand that this story has been on the street for sometime now. However, the fact that it took so long for the press to make mention of it, and the reporting is absent the obvious curiosity over the fact that the persons who were killed by the armed forces at Christmas Falls were not dressed in Camoflauge fatigues, the attack by the armed forces was alleged to have been a surprise and the bad guys were said to have run away leaving their arms and accoutrements, allows once again for the kind of assinine assignment of responsiblity for an atrocity.
No agency under the control of this political state in Guyana is competent to investigate any of these happenings. The aura of corruption is so thick it is stifling.
Exactly, how could the military have been scouring that area and not discovered that camp and the dead. And if they were in hot pursuit of Fineman’s gang, how did this gang have the time to do what was done there. The whole thing reeks, and indicates the absolute deficit of integrity, of truth, of any commitment to the rule of law.
My sympathy to the entire families of all the victims involved . Today is a very sad day for all of Guyana, When the military personel involved in the operation in the Christmas falls area read this news today how can something as gruesome as this pass you by ? according to the news the operation is covering the entire ..AREA . by planes boat and troops on foot also more military personel is being sent to the area yet cannot discover a camp with dead men it looks like every citizen have to become a soldier to defend them self .
UN please help Guyana,before more innocent people perish,this is clearly a case of mistaken identity by the joint services,not that I blame them,they are under pressure to deliver.
To amen-ra
Seems like you have issues with the law enforcement, you never give them the benefit of the doubt, what exactly is your problem? Amazing how all of you guys formulate your theories to satisfy your individual one dimensional beliefs. What is even more amazing is that there are persons out there that actually believe.
Go to Guyana and let the Police stop you and let me know how u feel afterwards especially at night trust me it is not a good experience.
Trooper – where in the hell have you been all these years – must be good old America!
Wake up an smell the roses bai – Guyana deh bad – an it is quite possible/more than likely that the comments here will come to fruition – sorry not yours!!
Trooper – go back to yuh homeland and live deh again – I dare yuh!
We do not believe that all of Law Enforcement are bad. We believe that there is a cadre of officials there assigned with a political agenda. And in that pursuit they torture and fabricate evidence to rationalise the use of extreme force on anyone who takes issue with the manner in which the nation is being run. The thing is, a secret is only that if it is confined to one person. There will ve revelations bye and bye, albeit too late to save lives being expended needlessly.
trooper I still can’t see how people can defend the government with all the facts and bumble we read everyday.
trooper take a second look they are bumbleing, they dont have their story right none of the time and worst of all they have a history of killing the wrong people, this is what started this killing of police in the first place
people get tired of being taken advantage of and shoot back, this is like jamaica in the 80,s think brother….think
Trooper you are absolutely correct , their political bias is so patently clear.
If they had their way the police would be going after these guy with slingshots.