The family of PPP/C Minister of Agriculture, Satyadeow `Sash’ Sawh, who was murdered in 2006 has rapped Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo for remarks suggesting that vital information from that period will remain undisclosed.
In a letter that appears on page six of today’s edition of Stabroek News, Sawh’s son, Roger, said the remarks were made on August 18 when Jagdeo, also PPP General Secretary, spoke on a night of reflection on the life of the late Dr Roger Luncheon.
The family of Sawh, who had also been a senior member of the party, has waged a 17-year campaign for answers on his murder and those of his brother, sister and a security guard on the night of April 22, 2006. The gruesome murders occurred under the Jagdeo presidency and amid a runaway crime spree. No one was tried for the murders though the authorities had said that prime suspects had died during confrontations with the security forces. With the security forces unable to control the situation several death squads arose. Luncheon, who was Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Presidential Secretariat at the time, famously anointed one as a “phantom” force.
The letter said that on the night of reflection Jagdeo stated that he and Dr. Luncheon were among a select few at the epicentre of the crime wave. The letter said that Jagdeo suggested that the nation’s interests were betrayed by individuals in the highest tiers of leadership in the security services. Most importantly, the letter said that he noted that the realities of that period had to be kept secret and will “go to the grave” with Dr. Luncheon. The letter said that Jagdeo promised to delve further into the issue during Dr. Luncheon’s funeral on Tuesday and intimated that he, too, intended to keep such secrets classified. On August 22, at the funeral and despite the promise, the letter said that Jagdeo steered clear of details, though he did reiterate that secrets are now confined “to the grave”.
“Editor, our family has been unrelenting in its 17 year plea for a further and better investigation into the death of our loved ones on April 22, 2006 (including a member of the very government in the eye of the storm). To declare that there is information from that period that has now gone with Dr. Luncheon and will go with other central figures of that time `to the grave’ is disturbing. It is indefensible. It smacks of rank insensitivity to those who remain in the dark all these years later. It is an affront to the memories of those who lost their lives. Most of all, it disregards a fundamental expectation of law, order and justice – that a government owes its citizenry all necessary information, be it good, bad or ugly, to identify wrongdoing and to allow justice to run its course. Simply put, the intellectual authorship behind that anarchic period cannot be treated as the privileged bailiwick of a cloistered group”, the letter declared.
It added: “We are not naive. There is no doubt that the details of that time must be troubling. But to declare, nearly two decades since, that knowledge and information will not come to light and call to account those who walk among us with blood on their hands is outrageous. It bears macabre reminding that, in our harrowing episode alone, Satyadeow Sawh, Rajpat Sawh, Phulmattie Persaud and Curtis Robinson all gruesomely lost their lives. Others were devastatingly injured – Aga Khan lost a kidney and faced further medical complications. Omprakash Sawh was shot. Our family dog, Brutus, was riddled with over 30 bullets. Our community was a murder scene. The nation was psychologically traumatized. To this day, people still lament the horror”.
The letter said that it was scandalous to suggest that information about that murderous time will “go to the grave”.
“The gravity of death opens the eyes of those left to mourn. There is nothing heroic about taking vital information `to the grave’. Whatever is known must be brought to light without delay so that the memories of those whose lives were extinguished and the lived realities of those left behind are no longer insulted”, the letter said.
Masked
The Minister’s wife, Sattie, and his brother, Omprakash, were in the kitchen on the night of April 22, 2006 when they saw a masked gunman looking at them through a window. Sattie had said that she alerted the Minister, who was in his hammock on the veranda, but before he could escape to safety, he was riddled with shots. He collapsed just inside his front door.
Sawh’s brother, Omprakash, hid his sister Phulmattie underneath a bed, but the gunmen found her and after dragging her out shot her in the face.
The gunmen then turned their weapons on the Minister again and at the same time placed Omprakash on top of another brother, Rajpat, to kill them both. Omprakash said he begged the men for his sister’s life and gave them $23,000, a digital camera and a watch. He said he and his brother were praying for their lives, but before the gunmen left they fired another shot at them, killing Rajpat.
Jermaine ‘Skinny’ Charles, who was killed along with Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins, during a shoot-out with the joint services and David Leander, called ‘Biscuit,’ who died, had been charged with the murders.
Former Crime Chief Seelall Persaud had told Stabroek News that the case was closed and would only be reopened when new information surfaced. He had said that the closing of the case signalled a suspension of investigations until new information came to hand. He did not deny that there may have been more persons engaged in the murders but pointed out that investigations are done based on the availability of information.
Shortly before taking up office, the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change coalition had promised that if elected to govern it would hold independent inquiries into the killings of Sawh and activist Courtney Crum Ewing.
After assuming office, President David Granger had announced that there would be a Commission of Inquiry into the assassination of Sawh, his siblings and his security guard but he didn’t say when.
In December 2019, Granger cited the lack of evidence and witnesses as the reasons why the inquiries had not been held into the killing of persons following the 2002 Camp Street Prison jailbreak and the ensuing crime wave.
