Eight diamond miners are believed to have been killed at Lindo Creek, located 10 miles downriver from Christmas Falls where wanted man Rondel ‘Fineman’ Rawlins and his gang had earlier been hiding out.
Among the dead are thought to be the son and brother of the Lindo Creek dredge owner, George Arokium – Dax, 28, and Cedric Arokium, 46. According to George, the names of the other men are Kampton ‘Tona’ Spiers and Drakes of Meten-Meer-Zorg, Berry Wong, Lancely ‘Piggy’ of Tucville, ‘Bonny’ Harry of Annandale and a teenager from Kwakwani.
George told Stabroek News that on Wednesday night he 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 from a private number. This time, George explained, it was a man calling who told him the same thing.
The dredge owner recounted that he arrived at his camp some time between 7 am and 7.45 am yesterday morning. “Skulls and bones,” he repeated at intervals as he described what he had seen. He said that the entire camp was in a state of disarray.
He said someone in the area told him that they had heard shots several days prior to his arrival there.
George maintained that it was indeed the remains of his men he had seen at the camp. “Eight men cannot be accounted for in the area and it is logical for me to think they are my men,” he said.
He described the camping site as having two main areas – the kitchen and another tent for sleeping. The tarpaulin roof was missing from the tent where the miners slept, George said, and he suspected that the eight men had been wrapped in the tarpaulin and their bodies burnt.
Stabroek News understands that the men who killed the miners were dressed in camouflage uniforms. During the five minutes that he spent at the scene, George said, he was not able to determine whether anything was missing from the camp although he assumed that the men had been robbed.
When Stabroek News arrived at the Arokiums’ South Ruimveldt Park home shortly after 7 pm yesterday, a number of friends and relatives had already gathered. Dean Arokium, Dax’s brother, was directing the preparations for a wake while being updated by his father on the telephone at intervals.
He told this newspaper that his father had left on Friday to travel to the Lindo Creek location.
According to Dean, his father said he could not bear the sight before him when he arrived at the scene and told the men who had accompanied him to cover the men’s remains. George, Dean said, then left the camp to travel back to Georgetown.
When this newspaper spoke to George later yesterday evening, he explained that he had arrived at a camp some four miles away from his at 2 am yesterday, and had slept there until 6.30 am, thereafter making his way to the Lindo Creek site.
Dean said that his brother had left behind his pregnant girlfriend, while his uncle Cedric leaves to mourn his wife and two teenage daughters.
“This ugly, this real ugly though,” a friend of the Arokiums was heard repeating.
Dean was overheard saying, “A whole set of army and CID [Criminal Investigation Department] people only calling and asking wha happen.”
Up to press time the police had made no statement on the matter.
Joint Services ranks recently killed a man, suspected be a member of a gang including wanted man Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins, after they were attacked in the Christmas Falls area some 300 miles up the Berbice River.
According to a Joint Services press release, around 7:00 hrs on Friday, June 13, ranks while on patrol in the Berbice River community encountered a gang of about six persons.
It added that the patrol had come under fire, returned fire and a gang member had been subsequently killed.
The release said other gang members who included wanted men ‘Fineman’; Cecilo Simeon Ramcharran called ‘Uncle Willie’; ‘Magic’; and ‘Chung Boy’ among others, escaped down a slope and disappeared into the jungle. Trails of blood found suggested that others had been injured, the statement added.
‘Uncle Willie’ and ‘Chung Boy’ were subsequently killed at Goat Farm in the Berbice River.
The Joint Services said the Christmas Falls camp had “four buildings in a desolate area in the jungle and 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, items of clothing, medical supplies and a bible which were abandoned by the gang.” (Sarah Bharrat)
