Dear Editor,
A sad, horrible and traumatic chapter in our country’s tattered history of public safety and security has been brought to an end by the Court.
As I write this letter, my thoughts went back to the agony of that period.
At that time, I served as Minister of Home Affairs, but today I consider myself blessed to be alive to learn about the outcome of the trials of the accused in the Lusignan and Bartica massacres.
The Nation is yet to clear its conscience and wash away the bloodstain that persists since the assassination of Minister Satyadeow Sawh and his siblings.
This letter can be construed therefore as both personal and political. It cannot be otherwise.
I remember well that day of August 28, 2008 when news broke to the effect that Rondell Rawlins was shot and killed by our security forces. The nation as a whole breathed a long, but deep sigh of relief; the “night of the long guns” seemed over.
I was one of the first to visit Lusignan on that eventful morning to see the full extent of the bloody massacre. Bodies… all Indo-Guyanese were still lying around exactly where they were brutally shot and killed.
Blood, it appeared was both the Avatar and the seal of the killers.
Later, it was ‘Sash’ Sawh and his visiting siblings, then Bartica. At Bartica the victims included Police ranks.
Again, on both occasions it was my duty as Minister but certainly not my honour as citizen Rohee to visit these sites, ghastly in the extreme and with the smell of death still in the air. Later, it was my onerous task to offer, as best as I possibly could, plausible explanations to an angry, impatient and a highly distrustful public as regards the inability of the government of the day and the security forces, especially the Police Force, to capture or take out members of the “Fineman gang.”
I recall further, the posture of the then Opposition PNCR who, at that time were hesitant to criticize, much less condemn the ‘Fineman gang’ who in their carnival of murder and mayhem were feasting on an atmosphere of fear and mayhem that gripped the Nation for several months.
As is typical of Guyanese politics, blame for the state of affairs had to be placed somewhere if not on someone and naturally, what better place politically than the government in general and the Minister of Home Affairs in particular!
When Rondell Rawlins was shot and killed it appeared as if there was some disappointment in certain political quarters but to the Nation as a whole his demise was greeted with relief.
On the morning of August 30th, 2008 courtesy of the Management of Lyken’s Funeral ParIour, I got permission to view the corpse of ‘Fineman.’
He was a big man with a huge, muscular, well-kept body. How he managed to do so while on the run and under the harsh terrain in the interior of the country is hard to tell.
As Minister of Home Affairs I visited from time to time, that section of the Georgetown Prison where those who were recently tried were securely held by Prison Authorities.
I followed with keen interest the two trials, the last of the two ending just a few days ago. The outcome gave me a sense that justice had prevailed even though all the personal and irreparable losses suffered by the Sawh family, the families and relatives of all those who were brutally murdered at Lusignan and Bartica can never be compensated for nor returned.
It is my sincere hope that those who held and perhaps still hold a different view about the intentions and actions of Rondell Rawlins and his armed gang would, in light of the verdicts issued by the Courts engage in a period of reflection and commiseration about his mission and his deeds and the application of that mission and those deeds in a country like Guyana. The Court’s verdict, coupled with a prolonged period of atonement during and after this year’s World Interfaith Harmony Week, should create the appropriate setting to bring closure to the dreadful “night of the long guns” that once gripped our country.
Yours faithfully,
Clement J. Rohee
Former Minister of Home Affairs
