| By Dale AndrewsWho killed the eight miners at Lindo Creek is still a question on almost everyone’s lips,NFL Jerseys Wholesale, and although the police are insisting that their evidence points significantly to the Rondell Rawlins Gang, several questions appear to be punching holes into that theory.For instance, where is the supposed eyewitness? Where is the supposed suspect? Is the body count (in terms of skulls recovered) correct? How did the perpetrators burn the bodies? And did the Joint Services really know where the Arokium camp was?Although these questions surfaced since the gruesome discovery, they were given more impetus with revelations contained in a recent statement issued by Leonard Arokium, the owner of the Lindo Creek mining camp.The positive answers to these questions would go a far way to put an end to the speculations that surround this seemingly unending mystery.The blame game is being played, with the dredge owner claiming that his men were killed by the security forces, who either mistook them for the Fine Man Gang, or to perpetrate a robbery and then a cover up. A document that was circulated by a senior Government source had suggested that Rawlins and his gang killed the men on the grounds that the victims had sold them out to the Joint Services.The document had stated that the modus operandi of the attack fitted similar attacks carried out by the notorious gang.The Joint Services have stated that they have nothing to hide and their investigations will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were not the killers. Three months on and they are still to convince the majority of the population.On looking at the first question, one can point to an indictment on investigators in the Guyana Police Force.A few weeks after the discovery, Acting Police Commissioner Henry Greene told the nation that there was an eyewitness to the killing.He subsequently announced that there was a suspect in custody and “charges are likely soon”.To date, the eyewitness has not been identified nor has the suspect been charged.If you were a family member of one of those killed, would you not want the eyewitness to tell the nation what he/she knows? Would you not want to see the suspect brought to face justice?Strangely, in his statement, which was posted on the Guyana Institute for Democracy website and a copy of which this newspaper has in its possession, Leonard Arokium claimed that he was “reliably informed anonymously by a few people that my son, Dax, was accompanied by an Amerindian labourer. So, instead of eight persons, it was nine. This means that there is a person unaccounted for. Eight skulls were found at the site.”Could it be that the missing person is the eyewitness to the gruesome murder that the police claimed to have contacted, having escaped the massacre?According to the police, the eyewitness has reportedly stated that Rawlins and his gang had attacked the camp and shot the miners, but one of them managed to survive that initial onslaught.That person, according to the eyewitness, was subsequently bludgeoned to death.Mr. Arokium, however, has raised another theory.He posited that the deaths of his workers may have been orchestrated by a person contracted by him and who is familiar with his work site. He thinks that robbing the operation of its diamonds may have been the motive.According to Arokium, the contracted employee is an ex-army rank who has a ‘squaddie’ currently serving in the army and who was in the Lindo Creek area hunting Rawlins and his gang.According to Arokium, the contracted employee had taken one of his squaddies to the camp site, and was overheard telling his squaddie and other members of the force who were in the area that “the boys were expected to wash (a process of separating diamonds and gold from the soil)”.So this addresses the other question as to whether the army knew where Arokium’s camp was, and could have clearly distinguished it from the one that was being used by Fine Man and his gang.But there seems to be some confusion. A few days after the discovery, the said contracted employee, who was identified to take investigators to the camp site, reportedly could not find the place. Was this a ploy to throw the investigators off course?The truth, though, is that the police issued that statement without waiting for a report from the team heading to the camp site, because the contracted employee did take the team to the camp site.Arokium posited that perhaps, during the attempt to rob the camp, one of the men resisted, probably the one whose skull was bashed in was the most vocal, and he was hit with a sledge.“A decision would have then been taken to herd the others together and slaughter them like lambs.”A very significant point was made by Arokium, who is a qualified and experienced land surveyor. He claimed to have spent the greater part of his life in the interior, and he pointed out that in that part of the country it would sometimes take very long for wet clothes to dry.He noted that when cremations are done on the sea coast, one corpse takes about three to four hours to burn with intense heat and wind.“I am suggesting that these bodies were carefully placed together and jet or aviation fuel was used to burn them. If the perpetrator is indeed Fine Man, where would he get that fuel from? He was supposed to be on the run,” Arokium questioned.The theory of the length of time a body takes to be cremated was supported by a practitioner of the art for several years.The man, who did not wish to be identified, told this newspaper that, although a cremation pyre drives intense heat, it will take some time for a body to be fully cremated.He, however, suggested that if the perpetrators had wrapped the bodies in tarpaulin, which is quite possible given that the entire camp was burnt, the flammable substance of the tarpaulin would have caused a huge conflagration with intense heat to burn the bodies.But, surely, such a large conflagration should have been observed by the security personnel hunting Fine Man and his gang, and who also had the services of a helicopter to assist in surveillance.Then there is the question of the missing telephone which belonged to one of the dead miners.The records show that the telephone was in use more than a month after the slaying.There was a row over whether Arokium had given the number of the missing telephone to investigators. He is claiming that he did, while the police are saying that he did not.Nevertheless, the police have since been provided with the necessary information.But although certain sections of the media have contacted persons whose telephone numbers were contacted through the missing cellular phone, the police were late in obtaining the list of contacted numbers from the telephone company.Surely, by the time they did obtain that information, their investigation would have already been compromised, and persons would have been prepared.This could give the impression that the police are dragging their feet on the investigations, and this could again give rise to allegations of a cover-up.But, to their credit, the police are now claiming that they have unearthed certain incriminating discrepancies with regards to the missing telephone.Forensic experts from Trinidad, who were the first independent investigators to visit the scene, have already submitted an initial report to the local police which suggested that the security forces in the area could be ruled out as the perpetrators.A senior security official has said that maybe Arokium is trying to avoid compensating the families of his workers who were killed while in his employ.We could go on and on speculating as to what is and what is not. But, as a start, the local investigators should at least try to dispel some of the incriminating theories and put to rest all speculations. |
