A once lucrative gold and diamond mine, Leonard Arokium’s facility at Lindo Creek, Upper Berbice has been left to be overrun by the fast-growing jungle and wild animals in the area.
Camp Lindo had made the headlines just over six months ago when eight burned bodies believed to be Arokium’s brother, son and six other employees were found there wrapped in tarpaulin. Just prior to the horrific find, there had been reports of a ‘wash down’ (a significant diamond harvest) at the mining camp.
Arokium, who made the gruesome discovery of the burnt skeletal, unidentifiable bodies, after he journeyed to the area in June last year following phone calls urging him to do so, said he had not gone back to the area since. He told Stabroek News recently that Camp Lindo was a crime scene and he had received no official notice that it was okay for him to return. But he added that even if this were possible, he did not, at the moment, have the will to return.
“It’s like I have lost the urge. I am still at a standstill, but I know that eventually I will have to pick the pieces up,” he said.
Arokium has owned the camp for close to five years, but operations were manned by his son, Dax. Still mourning the loss of Dax and of his brother Cedric, Arokium told Stabroek News that the loss of his closest brother, son and employees had changed his life for good. Along with the two Arokiums, the other miners at the site were Clifton Wong, Nigel Torres, Compton Speirs, Horace Drakes, Lancelot Lee and Bonny Harry.
Camp Lindo was Arokium’s source of income and he is still coming to terms with the financial downturn. Asked about his next steps, Arokium hesitated, then muttered, “God will look after the rest.”
Arokium said too that he was concerned for the relatives of the dead men since everyone wanted closure to the matter. “Someone needs to tell us something. When will this finish?” he queried.
The mining camp owner has not changed his position that he did not believe Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins and his gang were responsible for the murders. “What evidence is there to question that, save and except for what I am saying. It seems like it is a done deal,” he said.
‘No Justice’
Relatives of two of the men recently told this newspaper that anything like justice remained far from their minds.
Lena Waldron, mother of Drakes, has still not come to grips with the sudden death of her son but believes there would be no justice as the police had concluded that the men were killed by the now dead ‘Fineman.’
“I think they have closed the case and we are not going to get justice… but up to yesterday I was crying… I guess eventually it would heal from our minds,” she told Stabroek News. “It makes no sense for us to fight them down, we will not get any justice.”
She referred to January last year when 11 persons were murdered at Lusignan, East Coast Demerara, and made note of the government’s response.
“The hurtful part is how they responded to those people in their time of grief and even after a year they came together… We never had any of this,” she said.
The woman said she had not heard from the police in terms of the results of the DNA tests but had read in newspaper reports that that tests had been completed on at least one of the samples but said that she was not sure which sample had been identified.
Waldron said she remained convinced that there must have been someone who had knowledge that the men had been killed but there may have been an intention to cover it up.
“No one in this country is stupid and nothing goes unpaid… God is the rewarder of any unjust action and I leave it to him,” she said. Drakes fathered five children.
Meanwhile the sister of Speirs who still questions why her younger brother had to do die in that way, said she was still disturbed every time she saw his photographs.
Carmen Gittens told Stabroek News that she believed the deaths of her brother and other workmates were not being taken seriously enough by law enforcement and insisted that much more could be heard from them in terms of the status of their investigations.
Receiving any form of justice was also far from her mind. “They are saying is ‘Fineman,’ so what else can we do?” she questioned.
“But they could at least come to us and say something or call us and not leave it for us to read in the press,” she said.
The woman also questioned the whereabouts of the remains adding that relatives would want to bury them.
The woman said on many occasions she had made attempts to visit the Ministry of Home Affairs to find out exactly what was happening with investigations.
She recalled that Speirs was at home, unemployed when he decided that he wanted to make his own money. She said years ago he had visited and worked in the backdam and added that as far as she remembered his visit to Lindo Creek was his third trip.
“But can’t they just come and say something what they doing with the remains or something? Every time I see his picture I ask myself why my brother had to die like this,” she said.
The investigation
Commissioner of Police Henry Greene had said a few months ago that an eyewitness/suspect had been held and would likely have been charged. That has not materialized.
Crime Chief Seelall Persaud told Stabroek News last week that the Jamaican forensic team had contacted the police in mid-December informing them that the tests had still not been completed.
Pressed on the status of investigations, Persaud said the investigations were still awaiting analysis and in the meantime he had nothing to say.
Questioned further about the eyewitness/suspect to the killings, all he did was to confirm that the assertions from the commissioner of police in relation to the incident still stood.
He said once the matches arrived the file with other information of evidential value would be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) office.
“All I can say is that we are awaiting those DNA results, I would not say more on the matter,” Persaud repeated.
Pressed further on whether there was likely to be the release of any new information, Persaud said that when there were changes they would be made public.
Countless efforts to contact Greene have proven futile.
On December 5 last year, Greene had told Stabroek News that partial results of the DNA samples taken from relatives of the slain Lindo Creek miners by the Jamaican forensic experts had confirmed that at least one of the men had died at the location. However, he could not say which one of the victims had been identified. At that time he said that the other bodies had not been identified.
That was the first information released since the samples were taken way back in July as the police had been reporting that they were receiving no information from their Jamaican counterparts.
Police have since investigated two reports of the use of the cellular phones which belonged to two of the dead men − Dax Arokium and Bonny Harry. Arokium’s phone was reactivated days after the burnt bodies of the miners were found. Several calls were made from that number, telephone records have shown, and police later requested records from the phone company.
Eldon Harry, the brother of Bonny Harry had told Stabroek News that since his brother’s death he had constantly dialled the number and it always had gone straight to a voicemail recording with his brother’s voice. But when he dialled the number in early November last year a man answered the phone and said: “I am Bonny Harry but I don’t speak English.” He said he then asked the man his location and the man named a hotel, which he said was in Brazil. “He give me the name of the hotel but to tell you the truth I can’t remember. I told him that I was coming to meet him and he said, ‘okay,’ but I was just bluffing,” he had told this newspaper.
When wanted men Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins and Jermaine ‘Skinny’ Charles were killed the weapons with which they were found were traced to the Lindo Creek murders, the police had said on the release of ballistic test results.
Additionally the police had concluded that the murders were committed by Rawlins and his gang because they had received substantial information from an eyewitness and first-hand information from women who were on board a bus which the gang had hijacked days following the camp killings. According to Greene, the women recounted hearing the men saying that they had killed some miners.
The suspect remains a mystery, and the police have not released any further information on him or stated whether or not he would be charged.