With searching questions being asked about their failure to capture a group of gunmen at Christmas Falls two weeks ago, police yesterday said that one of the two rifles found on two gunmen shot dead at Goat Farm in the interior belongs to the army and were used in the Lusignan and Bartica massacres.
The lawmen also disclosed that four men accused of harbouring the country’s most wanted man, Rondell Rawlins were arrested in a house in Linden on Tuesday.
Police also confirmed yesterday that the two dead men whose bodies were flown out from the interior to Georgetown on Tuesday were positively identified by their relatives yesterday – one of them Robin Julius Chung called Chung Boy was only 15. His partner in crime Cecil Ramcharran called ‘Uncle Willie’ is said to be 54.
In a press statement issued last evening the police disclosed that following investigations, four men were on Tuesday arrested in a house at Retrieve, Linden, on suspicion of harbouring Rawlins. The police said the men are in their custody assisting with the investigations.
A top joint services official told this newspaper that Rawlins and his gang had spent time in the mining town after the January 26 slaughter at Lusignan and used Linden as a launching pad for the February 17 Bartica massacre. They were in Linden several weeks following the Bartica killings, before moving deeper into the dense jungle at Christmas Falls, located some 300 miles in the Upper Berbice River, the source contended.
Meanwhile, using ballistic tests, police said they were able to link the two AK- 47 rifles recovered from Cecil Ramcharran and Robin Chung at Goat Farm, Berbice River, on Monday to the killings at Lusignan on January 26, 2008 and at Bartica on February 17. One of the weapons they said is the property of the Guyana Defence Force. The rifle was stolen during an ambush of a team of soldiers by armed men at Buxton on January 23, 2008, where Corporal Ivor Williams was shot and killed.
The police said the weapons were also used at the robbery/murder at Triumph, ECD, on December 16, 2007, where Fazal Hakim and Rajesh Singh were killed. Ballistics tests are still being done on exhibits collected at other scenes, the release added. Police ballistic tests have been greeted with some skepticism by some parts of society.
Diary
Police had linked the two massacres to the Buxton/ Agricola criminal gang being headed by Rawlins and a diary left behind when police first confronted the gunmen at Christmas Falls two weeks ago reportedly bore details of Rawlins planning and executing the massacres for the alleged abduction of his teenager child mother.
Crime Chief Seelall Persaud when asked about their operation yesterday would only say that their plan remained the same. He said the security forces’ aim was to capture all of the gunmen, including Rawlins, who are believed to be still in the jungle.
A high-ranking military official told Stabroek News yesterday that based upon the results and reports available the Christmas Falls operational was poorly planned and poorly executed. The officer said clearly there was little or no coordination between the police and the army, pointing out that the initial attack on he criminals’ camp was done by the police and it was only after the gunmen escaped that the solders were called in.
“How could you plan and go on such a major operation without involving your premier law enforcement agency,” the officer skilled in jungle warfare said. The officer said even days after the shooting at Christmas Falls, the security forces insisted that the gunmen were trapped, yet on Monday a number of them were found some 90 miles away from where they were thought to be cornered.
“This is evidence of poor planning. Most of the top officers in the army and police were exposed to international training I don’t believe this is what they produce,” the officer commented. He insisted that the army had a number of skilled officers and it was a pity that they were not involved from the very inception of the operation. Noting that the administration should demand more from its lawmen, the officer said had it been in other jurisdictions senior officers would have been disciplined for such failures.
Asked what should be done now to regain control, the officer said the security forces needed to pull out from the area and start afresh. “They need to go back to the drawing board and assess where they went wrong and begin all over again,” the officer declared. He said it made no sense staying in the jungle as it was costing the government and also exposing the limitations of the country’s security forces.
Cooking utensils
The security forces had initially reported that during their first encounter with the gunmen at Christmas Falls, one of them Otis Fifee was killed and some six others escaped, with only two weapons, shirtless and without any bags. However, Chung and Ramcharran were found with cooking utensils, the holy books, ammunition and others items. This raises the question of whether they were indeed at Christmas Falls or were in another area.
One of them also had a Republic Bank visa card, a Canadian Bank gold card and a Bwee Miles card all belonging to slain agriculture minister, Satyadeow Sawh. Asked why the gunmen would still keep these cards belonging to a man they allegedly killed two years ago, a senior police officer said that the psychopathic mindset of the criminals would cause them to keep these items. He pointed out that there had been several cases in the United States and in other developed countries where research has shown that the criminals look back at things which they took from their victims, whether it is credit cards, like in this case or whether they mark their gun for every victim they shoot. “It is like their satisfaction or their achievement,” the officer explained. He observed that for the ordinary mind it seems weird or strange that a man or men who are struggling to evade the joint services would have things like that in their possession. “But there is such a theory in criminology and explaining the behaviour of criminals,” the officer asserted. One comment on the Stabroek News website suggested that the card was being used as a tool to recruit.
Reports are that following the June 6 shoot-out at Christmas Falls the gunmen numbering over ten split up into two groups. One of the groups was headed by Ramcharran and was intercepted following the hijacking of a minibus on the Aroaima trail on Monday morning. Rawlins and another group of gunmen are said to have headed in another direction.
A resident of a hinterland community with extensive knowledge of the terrain told this newspaper that the road to the Christmas Falls area follows the UNAMCO road along the left bank of the Berbice River. The resident said that Kwakwani is on the right bank while Ituni, Aroaima and Goat Farm are on the left side of the river. The resident said all of these communities are between 80-100 miles downriver from Christmas Falls.
On June 6 members of the joint services responding to intelligence reports that Rawlins and his men were hiding out at Christmas Falls some 300 miles up the Berbice River, descended on the forested area. Once there they came under fire from around seven men, one of whom was Fifee who was shot and killed. The other six men, including Rawlins however managed to escape leaving behind a cache of arms and ammunition, some of which have been confirmed by police as having been stolen from the Bartica Police station the night that community came under siege by gunmen. The security forces had also discovered that the men were housed in an area with four buildings.
They had foodstuff to last several weeks in a large kitchen, which also had a gas stove, generator and solar energy. In addition, there were six portable tents, four hammocks, three mattresses, a mini-stereo system, a DVD player, a cell phone, a hand-held radio set, clothing, medical supplies and a Bible.
