Dear Editor,
The Indian Arrival Committee (IAC) has noted your extensive editorial on Monday, February 2, 2015, regarding comments made by Bishop Juan Edghill at the ‘Night of Remembrance’ to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the Lusignan massacre. While the IAC would not want to get involved in the Stabroek News/Edghill controversy, as a national Indian cultural organization and having been mentioned in the editorial in question as the organizer of the event, it feels compelled to make the following points:-
- The general media, including the Stabroek News, was invited to provide coverage. While the IAC cannot ascertain that your newspaper attended, it provided no coverage of the event, yet made pronouncements through the editorial.
- Bishop Juan Edghill was invited based on the critical role he played as former Chairman of the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) and not as a spokesperson for the government.
- The IAC along with the family and the religious community, has been working in collaboration over the years to host the event in an effort to pay tribute to the innocent souls that were snatched.
- The event has been a medium to foster healing over the years.
- The fact remains that eleven persons, including children, from one ethnic group who weren’t robbed, didn’t possess wealth and posed no threat to the gunmen, were slaughtered.
With regard to the fostering of healing, the IAC is surprised that while endeavouring on this path along with the families and other stakeholders, the Stabroek News would divorce itself from such and use the occasion to open a political wound. The absence of coverage by the newspaper can be demonstrative of the non-importance its attaches to the event and the need for healing in the aftermath.
The price the families were forced to pay must never be allowed to be forgotten.
Yours faithfully,
Yvette Ramharack
Coordinator/Secretary
Indian Arrival
Committee
Editor’s note
It was Bishop Juan Edghill’s remark which “open[ed] a political wound”, not the Stabroek News editorial.
