One day after gunmen slew eleven residents at Lusignan, President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday held meetings in several East Coast communities but he offered no new solutions and villagers remained skeptical.
Police and soldiers continue to patrol the volatile East Coast corridor, but to date there has been no major move on the criminal enterprise by the security forces. Three different meetings were held at Lusignan, Good Hope and Mon Repos, where the President promised to help resuscitate policing groups and demand more from the security forces who the residents said had let them down. Gunmen early Saturday morning shot and killed eleven people, including five children in a 20-minute blitz at Tract ‘A’ Lusignan, ECD. They left behind the mutilated bodies of Clarence Thomas, Ron Thomas, Vanessa Thomas, Mohandai Gourdat, Seegobind Harrilall, Seegopaul Harrilall, Shazam Mohamed, Shalem Baksh, Dhanrajie Ramsingh, Seecharran Rooplall and Raywattie Ramsingh. Three others were injured in the carnage: Nadir Mohamed, Roberto Thomas and Howard Thomas.
Residents of several communities nearby later erupted in protest, setting fires to used tyres, blocking the roadways and dismantling steel bridges on the Railway Embankment and on the Public Road. Several government ministers and Jagdeo rushed up to the area but they made little impact on quieting the residents who hurled insults at them. By 9 pm Saturday the protesters had retreated to their homes and some of the broken bridges were fixed and the roadway cleared. They however vowed to return if their demands were not met and did so yesterday afternoon.
Jagdeo held discussions with villagers of Mon Repos, Good Hope and Lusignan between 11 am – 3 pm yesterday, but he offered no concrete solutions to the people who at times disrupted the meetings. The head of state first met with residents of Mon Repos at a school in the village. He was several times offered a garland made with newspaper clippings of the pictures of the dead victims. On each occasion he was offered the garland he refused. The woman who made the garland insisted that he be presented with it but every time she tried the President objected and at one time warned her of her behaviour. Still very angry at Saturday morning’s atrocities, the villagers hurled insults at the Guyanese head of state, telling him that he and his cabinet were incompetent.
Residents complained on Saturday morning that during the shooting spree several of them had contacted the police at different stations along the East Coast yet ranks showed up one hour after the massacre. “I have asked for a full investigation into this,” Jagdeo yesterday reiterated, noting that despite the flaws of the security forces, the army and the police were the only legitimate bodies to fight crime. Residents said they did not want the army and the police in their villages noting that at the time of need they were not there. The President said on Saturday that the security forces were fully deployed along the East Coast and he had promised a mobile as well as a static police presence in the troubled communities. However, on Saturday night residents of Lusignan, Mon Repos and Good Hope demanded that the lawmen leave their villages. Jagdeo said following this the lawmen were deployed in Buxton where they were positioned at different locations.
Security issues
Addressing the issue of security, Jagdeo told the residents that some of them had to join the army and the police force if they felt these institutions were not ethnically balanced. He said he had asked several persons to enlist in the services but they refused saying that Indo-Guyanese did not like the police force and the remuneration was too low. “Well if the pay is low for one group then it is low for the other,” The president said. He told the angry residents that despite their lack of trust in the security forces, the army and the police force were the only two bodies at the moment to protect them. One resident then suggested that greater attention be paid to community policing and that drug-indicated businessman, Roger Khan and former Home Affairs Minister, Ronald Gajraj be brought back. Jagdeo told the resident that no one man could solve the crime problem, noting that Khan was in a US jail on a charge of drug dealing. “We have to work together
