Dear Editor,
I am motivated to pen this missive because another dastardly murder has stricken my family yet again. My first cousin, Ninawattie Nandalall, whom relatives knew as Sharada of No. 0 Village (also referred to as No. 54 Village), Corentyne, Guyana, was a hardworking, desperately poor, single mother of three. Sadly, her life was cut short by a gruesome murder that turns the stomach of anyone with even a shred of decency. Sharada was only 52 years old. On Thursday (April 11), she left home in the morning to pick mangoes in the ‘reef’ which is less than a quarter mile from her home. After she did not return home around the usual time, her daughter and son became very worried. Her son and his two male cousins who live nearby went to search for her. Calls were made for help to the No. 51 police station, who informed them that they had to wait 24 hours, and to political operatives in the area, but no help came. The boys searched through the night, returned home, and resumed their search early the next morning when her son found his mother’s semi-naked body. According to published reports, Sharada was raped and killed in a brutal murder. Relatives who discovered the body said that there was blood all over her face and her neck was slashed. The postmortem on the body confirmed that she had a cut on her neck, a fracture of the cervical spine, and suffered from asphyxiation, which in this case is most likely strangulation.
Yet again another poor woman is murdered in the most horrible way. No protest, no outrage. No Pandit stood up and called for an end to the madness, let alone justice. There is fear in the land and females are terrified. The decay and moral deprivation of society continues unabated, while the politicians in Georgetown, who control the rest of society, live their rich lives free from the violence and brutality that are the daily lot of poor people. The politicians and the very security people, including the police, lead a life and experience a reality that do not exist on the Corentyne coast and parts of rural Guyana, where people confront grinding poverty, madness that comes from alcohol and “weed,” daily violence, abuse, lack of resources, and neglect. How can people flourish or live the “good life” when even basic security is lacking? Callous neglect, indifference, moral decadence: for these and more the blame must be laid at the feet of the unfeeling career politicians. Sharda, whom I met in March 2022 when I attended her mother’s funeral at the same house where she resided, was one of the most hardworking single mothers. Unlettered due to a life of poverty, not a fault of hers, to make ends meet, she did all sorts of work, including farming, throwing a cast net to catch fish in the back dam, catching red shrimp in the swamp to sell, and domestic house cleaning when that opportunity arises.
Guyana has failed Sharada, just like others in her family, and so many other poor people of all races and religions. Sharada’s maternal uncle (Mamoo), my father, whom neither she, my sister nor I know, was murdered at No. 57 village in 1964, in a case of mistaken identity. At the time, I was four months old, and my mother was pregnant with my sister. My father’s killers bribed their way and walked free. One of Sharada’s mother’s sisters (Mousie) suffered a tragic death in a suspicious fire and another of her Mousie died from a botched surgery at Georgetown hospital. All of them were poor people who lost their lives, but there was never any justice. Nobody was held accountable. The talk by common people is that once you have money you can bribe your way. Those of us who experience violence, my mother, whose husband was murdered when she was just 18 years old, my sister with whom my mother was pregnant with at the time and I who was four months old at the time know that scars never leave you. Like your shadow, they stay with and affect you for the rest of your lives and haunt your very existence. It affects you for the rest of your lives. I only hope that Sharada’s children, her sister, and brother will be able to bear the burden of that painful scar and move on. The people in the area from the thinly populated villages No. 47 and No. 54 to No. 67 villages, probably totaling less than one thousand residents, have experienced violence continually. In 1964, when my father was murdered at No. 57 Village, a few months afterwards, two men were brutally murdered during home invasions in the same village. The violence has never stopped in the surrounding areas.
In 2013, a few houses away houses away from where my cousin Sharada (who was raped and murdered) lived, another one of my relatives, Lala Persaud Jagardeo, my mother’s first cousin, a rice miller of No. 55 Village was murdered by bandits who stormed into his house to rob his family. In 2023, a wanted bulletin was issued by the police for a man who allegedly attempted to murder Sandy Persaud of No.55 Village (Kaieteur News, 6/9/23). In 2022, a 25-year-old woman, Cindy Ramchandar was brutally murdered at No. 47 Village (Kaietuer News, 8/9/22) and 22-year-old Pechia, an ex-convict was found with chop wounds to his neck, back, and wrist in an empty lot at No. 55 Village (Stabroek News, 5/19/22). In 2021, two women at No. 55 Village were assaulted and robbed by masked men with guns and cutlass and Vevekanand Singh, a 23-year-old taxi driver, was beaten by a group of armed men at No. 66 Village (Guyana Times, 5/10/21), and Amanauth Ragunauth and his wife Samantha Singh of No. 69 Village were beaten and robbed of over $1.3M in jewelry by armed bandits (Kaieteur News, 5/3/21). In 2020, Vivekanand Brijbassi and Harry Persaud Prashad were both murdered at No. 62 Village (Kaieteur News, 1/3/20) and the bullet-riddled body of Parmanand Lakeram of No. 68 village was found in the No. 67 Village back dam (Stabroek News, 1/31/20). Also, in April 2020, bandits terrorized people at No. 57 and 56 Villages where they burglarized several homes and stole items worth millions of dollars.
In 2019, Gordial Balram of No. 69 Village was attacked in his home by armed bandits (Kaieteur News, 11/5/19) and the body of Nitender Oemrawsingh was found at No. 63 Village beach with gunshot wound to his forehead (Kaieteur News, 1/15/19). In 2017, 21-year-old Mahendra Ghanie was chopped up before being set on fire in a cemetery at No. 55 Village (Guyana Chronicle, 11/7/17). In 2016, Hemchand Sookdeo of Number 55 Village was murdered (Stabroek News, 6/4/16), 26-year-old Levan Chanderpaul of No. 68 Village was murdered (Kaieteur News, 3/26/21) and 24-year-old Ravi Kumar Sharma was murdered at No. 60 Village (Kaieteur News, 12/11/20). Skipping several years/crimes to highlight two well-known crimes in the same area in 1973 and 1974. In 1973, 45-year-old Paramanand Bholanath and 17-year-old Jagan Ramessar, both of No. 64 Village, were murdered. In 1974, Arnold Rampersaud of No. 60 Village was imprisoned on false charges, tortured, and harassed, spending 1,250 days in prison. I can go on and on, but it is exhausting to extract the information from newspaper reports. It is known that in the developing world, crimes reported to the police constitute no more than 30 to 40 percent of crimes committed, so even in the small villages mentioned above, violent crimes will be much higher. The newspapers are all located in Georgetown and do not report many crimes.
To get a good understanding of crime in the said area one will have to get the data on crime reports from the No. 51 Village police station and the Skeldon police station, but that is not feasible knowing the backwardness of the country. In Guyana crime data is a guarded secret, like most national data, so there is no independent assessment of crime, the quality of the data, and professionals’ input to improve collection, evaluation, and dissemination of crime data to guide policy interventions. There is no data-driven policy against crime or anything for that matter in the country. There is a longstanding cover-up, because in Guyana, for some weird reason the race of the victims and the criminals are hidden, not reported. That is an injustice. This injustice defies common epidemiological practice and policing practice worldwide. In the United States, on TV and other media, the first thing that comes out is the race, dress, and other description of the alleged criminal to apprehend them quickly. I have gone through multiple crime reports from the newspapers in Guyana and cannot find any race identifier of the victims and criminals, although in some cases, the pictures are there in the reports. How would the government be able to justifiably intervene in providing resources to fight crime without knowing the racial/ethnic groups suffering the most? Is hiding race in crime a political strategy? Does it have anything to do with political slogans such as “one people, one nation, one destiny”, ‘social cohesion” and “one Guyana”? Why the insistence on “one” when the people are of different races, ethnicities, and religions?
It is a great shame how career politicians have wrecked Guyana. There is little, if any, hope that living conditions will get better. My focus here is on gruesome murders and violent crimes in a small area of the country (No. 47 and No. 54 to No. 67 villages). If I incorporate the Wismar massacre, Lusignan massacre, Bartica massacre, January 8-1998 riot, East Coast Demerara riot of 2022, and other violence, one will be shaken to the core. Imagine mothers and fathers, sons, and daughters, who have experienced violence, who have seen their loved ones chopped up, stabbed, shot, or a son who found his mother’s naked body in the back dam under a tree? Where is your conscience, career politicians?
Sincerely,
Dr. Somdat Mahabir
Senior Scientist and Professor (Adjunct)