THE Lindo Creek Commission of Inquiry (CoI) report will be handed over to President David Granger today by Chairman of the Commission, Justice (ret’d) Donald Trotman.
The simple handing-over ceremony will unfold at State House at 12:00hrs, following a six- month inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the killing of Cecil Arokium, Dax Arokium, Horace Drakes, Bonny Harry, Lancelot Lee, Compton Speirs, Nigel Torres and Clifton Berry Wong, whose charred remains were discovered on June 21, 2008 at Lindo Creek in the Upper Demerara/Upper Berbice region.

Over the six-month investigation, which included two extensions, over 60 witnesses and persons of interest appeared before the commission. A total of 20 public-hearing sessions were reportedly conducted, in addition to 10 private interviews and five in-camera sessions. According to a source close to the commission, the report presents conclusive findings.

Relatives of the murdered men have maintained that the act was committed by members of the Joint Services but the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) and Guyana Police Force are contending that the men were murdered by the then Rondell Rawlins alias ‘Fine Man’ gang.
When GDF Major Andy Pompey and Lieutenant-Colonel Omar Khan took the stand in May, they said it was possible for the criminal gang to be mistaken for the Joint Services on the basis that they were using military weapons and camouflage clothing while on the run from the police.

The Military Criminal Investigation Department (MCID), which had conducted an investigation in June and July, 2008, had said that miners may have been victims of a fatal robbery or may have been killed because of their suspected roles as informants of the Joint

Services as it cleared the Joint Services of the allegation of mass murder.
But George Leonard Arokium, owner of the mining camp where the charred remains of the miners were found at Lindo Creek, in his search for answers, questioned whose decision it was to destroy the “evidence” at the scene.

Mr. Arokium, whose son Dax Arokium and brother Cedric Arokium were among those killed at the camp, was the final witness to appear publicly before the commission investigating the massacre. The charred remains were discovered by Mr. Arokium.

Mr. Arokium said he finds it difficult to believe that “Fineman” and gang after engaging in a shoot-out with police at Christmas Falls on June 6, 2008, would proceed to the camp at Lindo Creek and kill the miners when there was a heavy presence of Joint Services ranks at the UNAMCO checkpoint.

The UNAMCO trail is used to access Lindo Creek from Ituni and Kwakwani. In the words of Mr. Arokium, “Fineman” ought to have been a “really brave man” to kill and burn the miners in close proximity to the checkpoint where the Joint Services were operating.
A critical part of the investigation by Justice Trotman was a visit to the scene at Lindo Creek in May. At the scene, the commissioner told those present that the journey was critical to the inquiry.

“We hope also that our presence here will encourage the appropriate authorities of our state and government to afford and accord the responsibilities which they have to protect their citizens in times of peace and in time of peril. So as we leave here today, history will remember that we met here in a spirit of inquiry; in a spirit of wanting to find the truth of what happened so that something similar will never happen again in our country among our people,” he had said.

Ahead of setting up the commission, President Granger had said that the inquiry into the Lindo Creek Massacre was pivotal in the unravelling of the tapestry of criminality that engulfed the country between 2000 and 2008.

He noted that while there were approximately eight massacres during the period of the “Troubles,” the investigation into the Lindo Creek Massacre is critical in exposing the intellectual authors behind the criminal network that wreaked havoc under the Bharrat Jagdeo administration.