Murders shock Guyana: CEN 2.08.08 p 9. February 7, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies, Crime.trackback
Church and government leaders in Guyana have called for calm following the murders of 11 people in the coastal village of Lusigan in the early morning hours of Jan 27.
The killings have provoked a crisis for the government of President Bharrat Jagdeo (pictured) and may heighten the already difficult relations between the country’s Black and Indian communities.
After creating a diversion by shooting up a police station, a large well-armed criminal gang selected the homes of five Indo-Guyanese families and slaughtered eleven people, including five children, wounding three others.
Calls by panicked neighbors to the police went unanswered during the 20 minute rampage. When police arrived an hour and a half after the shooting had stopped, they told the survivors they had delayed coming from fear of an ambush.
The police declined to speculate on the motive of the killers, who were identified as an Afro-Guyanese criminal gang. However, local newspapers reported the killings were designed to foster fear and to establish the gang’s control over the local community.
The Anglican Church in Guyana denounced the Lusignan murders as a “barbaric deed.” Bishop Randolph George noted the “outrage and bewilderment” left in the wake of the killings. However, he urged restraint and called for a re-commitment from all the members of the community towards building a new Guyana.
Racial tensions between the Indian community and the African community have plagued Guyana since independence from Britain. Emigration has taken its toll on the country as many middle class and educated Guyanese have left the country for Britain, the US or Canada—giving New York City a larger Guyanese population than Guyana.
Church and government critics note the Lusignan murders could mark a “tipping point” between what is seen as a corrupt and ineffective government and well-armed and confident criminal gangs.
In a joint statement issued with the US, Canadian and EU ambassadors, British High Commissioner Fraser Wheeler called for calm. Communal violence and retribution would not provide justice for the dead, and would undermine the country’s recent strides towards development.
The High Commissioner stated that body armour and other resources were on their way from Britain, and trainers to aid the police were to be in Guyana next month.
“As friends of Guyana,” the ambassadorial statement said, they remained “steadfast in their support and were optimistic that the atrocity was a challenge Guyana will overcome.”
why would they d o such a thing