Jamaican investigators are expected in the country to conduct DNA tests on the remains found at Lindo Creek last month and family members of the eight miners murdered are hoping that the results would give them some form of closure.
Mining camp owner, Leonard Arokium, yesterday said that last week he received a call from an Assistant Commissioner of Police, who heads a special unit in the force, asking him to inform the relatives of the miners that DNA tests are expected to be done on the remains by the Jamaicans. He said the police officer had indicated that he would have called him to give him further information on the arrival of the officials but up to yesterday afternoon he had not called.
Arokium told Stabroek News he has since informed the family members and many of them are in full agreement that the DNA tests should be done as they are looking for some form of closure. “It is not that this will answer who kill the men as the questions are still there about that, but if the DNA test is done then people can get remains that belong to them and can get some form of funeral or we can just keep one big memorial service, for all the families,” Arokium said. He lost his son and brother at the mining camp.
The Ministry of Home Affairs had announced last week after the US Government had indicated that it was unable to help Guyana in the investigation, that help had been sought from CARICOM countries and that Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados had all responded positively.
A three-man investigative team from Trinidad visited Guyana last week and after two attempts were able to visit the mining site where one local investigator said they “worked”. The three have since returned to Trinidad.
Meanwhile, almost one week after the police via a press release announced that they had a suspect in the murders of the miners there has been no further information. It is not clear whether the suspect is still in custody which would mean he/she had been kept long past the 72 hours police can hold someone without charging them. The police have refused to answer any questions on the investigations. Arokium yesterday said he has not heard anything about the suspect other than what he read in the newspapers and that “it is the police who say they have a suspect, so let them charge the person.”
The disclosure about the suspect came two days after Commissioner of Police (ag), Henry Greene was quoted in the Kaieteur News as saying that the force has a witness who provided details to substantiate that the killings were carried out by Guyana’s most wanted, Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins’ gang.
Arokium believes that members of the joint services were responsible for the deaths of the eight miners and has said so publicly on many occasions following the June 21 discovery of bones and skulls at Camp Lindo. The Joint Services have since strongly denied this.
Arokium 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.
This time, Arokium explained it was a man calling and he told him the same thing.
Those who were killed at the site were Dax Arokium, Cedric Arokium, Compton Speirs, Horace Drakes, Clifton Wong, Lancelot Lee, Bonny Harry and Nigel Torres.
The police have since said that ballistics tests on the spent shells discovered at the scene found that they match one of the weapons that was recovered by the security forces from Cecil Ramcharran called ‘Uncle Willie’ and Robin Chung called ‘Chung Boy’ who were slain at Goat Farm during a confrontation with lawmen
Police had said they encountered Fineman and his gang during a confrontation at Christmas Falls on June 6. They said that one of the gunmen was killed while six others managed to escape.
Shortly after this another group of gunmen hijacked a busload of passengers on the Aroaima trail and disappeared. Police killed two gunmen subsequently at Goat Farm, located some 90 miles from Christmas Falls and arrested a teenager at Ituni. The teen was subsequently charged with the February 17, killings at Bartica. It is not clear whether the men who were killed – Chung and Ramcharran – were among the hijackers.
Police have not been able to explain how the gunmen who were first confronted at Christmas Falls were able to move 90 miles, breaking out of a cordon which was reportedly established by the Joint Services. (Oluatoyin Alleyne)
