By Jeff Trotman
Over one hundred Linden residents on Tuesday endorsed the name, Linden Martyrs Monument Park, for the proposed facility to be established in the vicinity of the Mackenzie-Wismar Bridge to commemorate the month-long protest by Linden residents against electricity rate hikes and in remembrance of three residents who were shot by the police on July 18th 2012.
Regional and municipal councillors, business persons, ordinary citizens and a wide range of age groups participated in the exercise, which took the form of a public consultation in which architect, Robert Bentinck, presented two designs for them to choose, merge or make alterations to in a collective effort to prepare the monument and the park in which it would be located.
The interactive gathering chose one of the designs with suggested changes to be made in time for it to be unveiled at the site of the proposed park on July 16th as part of the commemorative activities.
Regional Chairman Sharma Solomon, in giving an overview of the proposed monument and park as well as imminent action to be taken to commemorate the lives of Ron Somerset, Allan Lewis and Shemroy Bouyea and to pay respect to dozens of others, who were injured, said six meetings amongst stakeholders and the Regional Democratic Council have been held to fine-tune the seven days of commemorative activities.
The design of the Linden martyrs’ monument “should not belong to any one person, any one party, any one group,” Solomon insisted. “It should belong to the people of Linden and Region Ten and it is with this in mind that we wanted you here, today, to be a part of history … so that you can make your impression and years to come, you could say that you were part of identifying with a structure that symbolizes our strength and our perseverance where we can lend to this nation inspiration as to how we move forward and identify and correct where we went wrong.”
In introducing Bentick as an architect, who is responsible for several designs around the capital city of Georgetown, including the Parliament Park as well as areas in the vicinity of the CARICOM Secretariat, the Regional Chairman, said the occasion also presented an opportunity to reflect on one of the most unfortunate incidents to affect Linden and Guyana.
“This community suffered the gravest suffering that one can endure,” Solomon said, “the loss of three lives: Ron Somerset; Allan Lewis and Shemroy Bouyea and dozens of others were injured and are still suffering today. So, it is with that context that we reflect, we commemorate the first anniversary of the 18 July, that we take this opportunity to say how do we get the attention, not so that we can create a ruckus, not so that we can generate unnecessary excitement but so that we can demonstrate that we are prepared to overcome the greatest challenge that we would have seen – and I say this without any remorse or regret – that we would have stood against the ultimate challenge this community would have faced over the past year and years before where over 1,000% increase of hardship would have come your way.
“We have businessmen, who continue to say to us, thank you because we would have had a $10M light bill today and that would have translated to further hardship on this community. We’ve had persons, who have come to us and say, we would have been seeing things wrong in our community and never took the opportunity to stand in defence of that and we found the courage to do that – and I’ve always said that our courage must overcome our fear because it is only by staring our fears in the eye that we could overcome those fears.”
The programme of activities begins tomorrow with a public meeting beginning at 6.30 pm at the Palm Tree Cinema Square, Wismar. This meeting will be coordinated by the Evangelical Ministry Fellowship Council.
There will be a photographic exhibition at the Mackenzie Market Square on Saturday, 13th July. The photographic exhibition will catalogue and chronicle events of the month-long electricity protest.
On Sunday 14th July, the eight cooking camps that provided food to the protestors will engage in symbolical cooking of the meals at the entrance of West Watooka. This is intended to be a cooking extravaganza of creole Guyanese cuisine – rice pap, fried rice, shine rice, bakes, salt fish and float, etc. – that they prepared at their respective locations during the protest.
Schools within Linden will also be involved in the programme. On Monday, 15th July, nursery schools will participate in individual and group poetry presentations while at least one Grade Six student from each primary school will participate in an essay competition on the topic: “What I learnt from the July 18 martyrs”. Additionally, there will be an East versus West Secondary Schools debating competition in which one representative from each of the four secondary schools on either side of the river will make up the respective East and West teams. All these activities will be held at the Egbert Benjamin Interpretation Centre.
On Tuesday, 16th July, the model of the monument will be unveiled at the site at which it would be erected – in the vicinity of the Mackenzie/Wismar Bridge at the entrance to West Watooka.
A candlelight vigil is scheduled for the evening of Wednesday 17th July. Candles will be made available to participants, who will be moving off from the Palm Tree Square, the Bay Rock Community Centre and the Five Corner, respectively, to converge on the West Watooka entrance.
The commemorative activities climax on Thursday, 18th July with wreath-laying at the gravesite of the three Linden Martyrs by their families, relatives and friends during the morning while there will be a memorial and commemorative ceremony in the vicinity of the Mackenzie-Wismar Bridge in the afternoon.
Architect, Robert Bentinck made a powerpoint presentation of two possible designs of the proposed Linden Martyrs Monument Park
