The police may still be tracking at least two members of the Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins gang who escaped the cordon at Christmas Falls when police descended on the area on June 6 this year.
The exact number of gunmen who were at the location where Rawlins had been for some time has never been made clear. Reports had indicated that the men at the hideout numbered around six, and while neither the police nor joint services have ever officially published the number of men they suspected had fled, they have never officially denied reports which said the men numbered around six.
In a statement following the men’s getaway the joint services said that the gang members including wanted men ‘Fineman’; Cecil Ramcharran called ‘Uncle Willie’; ‘Magic’; and Robin Chung called ‘Chung Boy,’ among others, had escaped down a slope and disappeared into the jungle. Trails of blood found suggested that one or more of them had been injured.
Rawlins, Chung, Ramcharran and Otis Fifee called ‘Mud-up’ are the gang members who were subsequently killed. Fifee was killed immediately after the joint services attacked the camp, Chung and Ramcharran were killed days after the getaway and Rawlins, just about a month ago after the joint services received information that he and prison escapee Jermaine Charles were at a Timehri shack. They were subsequently traced to another hideout which they ran to at Kuru Kururu on the Linden-Soesdyke Highway, following which they were shot and killed.
The joint services have since made it clear that there will be no letting-up and that they continue to work to dismantle the gang, but they have not said whether they are positive that they have rooted out the entire gang that was at Christmas Falls.
A senior police officer with whom this newspaper spoke has since confirmed that ‘Magic’ was another alias for Ramcharran and was not a separate individual. Asked whether there may be a fifth man on the run, the officer hesitated to comment, but noted that the police were doing some work at the moment and had crucial information, which, if made public, would have a negative impact on the investigations being undertaken. The officer hesitated to comment on exactly how many men were with Rawlins at the Christmas Falls location.
However, he said the police were working to sort out a number of call names which many of the suspected gang affiliates and members carried and which at times had resulted in some amount of confusion for the lawmen.
Fifee was the first to be shot during the confrontation while others including Rawlins managed to escape leaving behind a cache of arms and ammunition. Recent information reaching this newspaper indicated that it was about 45 minutes after Fifee was killed that the lawmen went looking for his body, which gave the other gang members enough time to make good their escape.
Days after this confrontation, the police said the joint services encountered two armed men in the Goat Farm area, Berbice River, which is between Aroaima and Kwakwani, some 90 miles from Christmas Falls. Police said there was an exchange of gunfire during which the two men were shot and killed. They were later identified as Ramcharran and Chung. Two AK-47 rifles and a quantity of ammunition were recovered, following which the joint services continued to work on the premise that more men were in the area.
The group of gunmen had reportedly split up and some of them hijacked a passenger bus on its way to Linden. Police have since said that information gathered from two persons on the bus suggested that Rawlins was one of the men who hijacked the bus, forcing the driver to take them to a location. They then fled the area.
A 14-year-old who was found wandering on the trail has since been charged with the murderous attack in Bartica on February 17, in which 12 persons were killed by a gang of around 10 men.
Lindo Creek
It is still not clear at which point the eight miners at a Lindo Creek mining camp were slaughtered and then burnt. This was made public when Leonard Arokium, on the evening of Saturday, June 21, approached the media with the dreadful news.
This newspaper has since been informed that some time around June 17, as the GDF-1 Bell 206 helicopter was conducting surveillance in the area, a policeman who was with the pilot at the time had noticed thick smoke coming from the ground. However, he made no attempt to alert the pilot and only did so when he returned to base command.
During this time too, a source said, the police managed to interview two women who were on the hijacked minibus. The women had told them that a man who fitted the description of Rawlins said the police had not found the dead miners. According to the source one of the women revealed that one of the armed men had mentioned something about miners being burnt.
Though all this was included in the statement given to the police by the women before the Arokium discovery, the source said nothing much was made of it until the discovery.
Exactly what occurred in the Lindo Creek camp prior to June 21 when the remains of eight human beings were discovered, remains a mystery.
The police have continued to stand by their story that Rawlins and his gang murdered and then burnt the miners and supported this with what they said was evidence given to them by an eyewitness/suspect. The police have said nothing more about the eyewitness/suspect. A senior police officer recently refused to give more information in this regard and said that once the investigations were complete with the DNA test results from the Jamaican team, the police would then forward their completed file to the Director of Public Prosecutions for advice. Until then, the police would have nothing further to say about the eyewitness. Commissioner of Police (ag) Henry Greene first revealed that this individual had provided substantial evidence to back the police’s stance on the killings.
Fineman’s diary
Meanwhile, the senior police officer told Stabroek News that the force was still in possession of the diary of now dead fugitive Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins which had been recovered by the joint services along with other items left behind when he and others fled their Christmas Falls hideout on June 6. The full contents may never be made public, as the most important information had already been made public, a senior police source said recently.
The officer told this newspaper that the diary had nothing more worth making public except for some telephone numbers which the police were still checking from time to time and investigating where necessary. Asked whether the public would ever have a chance to see what the diary looked like and exactly what it said that linked the fugitive to the two massacres, the officer replied he doubted whether that could be made possible.
“It’s like a regular diary,” the source said.
This newspaper had been reliably informed that a Lethem woman had been arrested, brought to the city and questioned after her number had been found in the fugitive’s diary. This was during the lawmen’s intense investigation period while the men were still on the run. The police have never admitted to the arrest even though word had circulated in the Region Nine community that the woman had been held because the police felt that she may have been in contact with the man. However, the police reportedly did not come up with enough evidence of any possible communication between the woman and Rawlins and so she was never charged.
The joint services in a statement following the discovery had said that the diary was found along with three FN rifles, four shotguns, one (1) .32 revolver, two AK-47 magazines, seven FN rifle magazines, along with 1,159 rounds of 7.62 x 39 ammunition, 143 rounds of 7.62 x 51 ammunition, 10 rounds .38 ammunition, one round of .32 ammunition and 36 12-gauge cartridges in the desolate jungle area where the men were hiding out. Police had confirmed that the three FN rifles had been stolen from the Bartica Police station and the .32 revolver and two of the shotguns belonged to Chunilall Babolall, the owner of CB&R Mining company, which was robbed on that night and whose security guard was shot dead.
An officer who had spoken to this newspaper on the basis of anonymity not long after the diary was discovered had said that it was not well-organised, and the spelling was phonetic. However, he said, it did provide details of some planning of the Bartica and Lusignan massacres which claimed the lives of 23 people. According to the official, on one of the pages of the diary the writer said he was taking revenge for the mysterious disappearance of Tenisha Morgan, Rawlins’s teenage wife and his child.
Next to it were the notes on the Lusignan massacre. There was also a note about the Bartica killings and the murder of Marcyn King, Rawlins’s sister who was gunned down in March on her way home.
