It later became clear that the trio had befallen a grisly fate – either the victims of a hit and run accident or plunderers who were on the lookout for riches. Suspicion later fell on coastguards who had already been implicated in the horrific murder of gold trader Mr Dweive Kant Ramdass in the Essequibo River. It transpired that some of the coastguard ranks had been known to shake down commuters on the river and this practice had deepened. Just freshly out from his mining business, Mr Dinanauth and the two others were making their customary trip to Hog Island when disaster struck. The miner was found without his jewellery and $300,000. Furthermore there appeared to be blunt trauma on the two bodies even though drowning was given as the cause of death.
As with many other cases where the joint services have been implicated, unless there is a smoking gun the authorities prevaricate and shilly-shally. Given the outrage over Mr Ramdass’ sickening murder the authorities would not easily concede that the coastguards could now be assigned responsibility for three more murders. The matter remains in limbo even though there were telltale signs of an accidental or deliberate collision between a coastguard vessel and the boat containing the trio. Green paint was transferred to one vessel and blue paint to the other. In normal law enforcement jurisdictions, a forensic examination would have revealed in short order whether the paints were conclusively from the vessels in question. Unfortunately, this is not a normal, functioning society and therefore there has been no final word on whether the coastguards were indeed culpable in the incident and answerable for the deaths of the two men and the disappearance of Ricky.
Two women have stood out as beacons of resilience and perseverance in the face of bitter tragedy and inevitability: Salimoon Rahaman, the reputed wife of Mr Dinanauth and the mother of Ricky and Lilawattie Persaud, the wife of Mr Gibson who has been left to take care of four children while living in penury.
Ever since August 11 and the swirl of rumours and suspicions about what happened to her son, Mrs Rahaman has waged a relentless, lonely and emotional campaign for the government and the security services to take the job of finding out what happened to her son and the others seriously and to grant her some peace of mind. It has not been easy. She has been met with closed doors and in one case the callous instruction to send a fax to a government functionary. It was only days after the boat incident and after the glare of publicity over Mr Ramdass’ murder that the police and GDF helped Mrs Rahaman in the gut- wrenching search for her son and then only for a few days. Aside from assistance from some members of the public, she was left alone to contemplate how she would continue the quest to find her son or at least his remains. Even more distant, was the prospect of securing justice. The police have provided the very feeble excuse of having to wait for the training of someone to conduct the test on the paint samples which could help determine whether the coastguards were culpable. This is outrageous. The testing should have been entrusted to a commercial lab for immediate results. It is that important.
Mrs Rahaman has been subjected to further trauma by the sighting of bags on Wakenaam that could have contained the remains of her son. These bags had been detected by a hunter two weeks after the incident, further evidence that the army should have invested more time and effort in the search for Ricky. An admirable and courageous effort was put in by the army in the search for Ms Aliya Bulkan but unfortunately Mrs Rahaman has been badly let down by the army and the government.
Mr Gibson’s wife was also left to fend for herself in the most dire circumstances. She vowed in a recent interview with this newspaper that even if it was salt and rice she would take care of her children. Having to now look after four children on her own, she can hardly concern herself with who was responsible for her husband’s death. Yet, she too, is entitled to an incisive investigation of the case by the authorities.
And what of the social safety net that should be in place for Mrs Persaud and others. It was only after the publicizing of her plight in this newspaper that moves were belatedly made to help her in terms of public assistance and a house lot. Isn’t the much vaunted and not recently heard of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) supposed to be mapping the hard-luck cases like Mrs Persaud and others in the nooks and crannies all across this country? So why is it so frequently the case that these examples of desperate living are only detected and acted upon when the media focuses on them? Of what possible use is this compendium of tree-wasting reports if by now they have not been able to devise structured help for these families most in need? Can President Jagdeo confidently convince the Copenhagen summit this week that forest monies will be used to lift poor people out of poverty when the Salimoons and Lilawatties were so uncared for by the state? What about the countless other families who have no voice and no possibility of being in the media spotlight. What will be their fate?
Brecht must have dedicated his Mother Courage and Her Children to mothers like Salimoon and Lilawatie. We have let them down but we can make up for it somewhat by providing the answers that they need and easing their burdens.
