…relatives still search for answers, justice

AT just 33, Shaka Blair was executed by the Guyana Police Force’s Target Special Squad (TSS) on April 6, 2002, though it had no evidence to corroborate its story that the father of three had guns and ammunition stashed in his Middle Walk, Buxton, East Coast Demerara home. His execution would later set in train the unrest and violence that engulfed that East Coast Demerara village and the subsequent decade of the extra-judicial killings and mass murders.

Referring to this period as the “Troubles”, President David Granger had told the Parliament back in October 2016 that it was the “darkest hour” that was characterised by drug-driven chaos and bloodshed. Bharrat Jagdeo was President of Guyana during that period during which there were three massacres: Lusignan where 11 people were killed; Bartica where another 12 were killed; and Lindo Creek where seven miners were slaughtered. Besides, there were countless extra-judicial killings, with some activists estimating that around 400 Afro-Guyanese males were gunned down.

Back in 2003-2006, convicted drug-trafficker, Shaheed Roger Khan, had set up a criminal network here which included active policemen and a number of former ranks, ostensibly to go after criminals, but at the same time protecting his narco-trafficking interests. He was nabbed in neighbouring Suriname in 2006 while fleeing local police, and was later handed over to U.S. authorities. Although the PPP Government had sought to distance itself from Khan, the drug-trafficker had stated publicly in an advertisement in local newspapers that he had been fighting crime on behalf of the Bharrat Jagdeo-led government. Khan had also implicated former Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, in his escapades, and documents bearing the then minister’s signature authorising the purchase of a sophisticated wire-tapping device were produced in U.S. courts during Khan’s trial.

The police account
Testifying before Coroner Brassington Reynolds in August 2002, then Police Constable 17561 Sean Belfield alleged that Blair had fired the first shot, and the police merely responded. Belfield, according to reports during the inquest, told the coroner that then Senior Superintendent Steve Merai, after securing a search warrant, proceeded to Shaka’s home upon receiving information that the father of three was allegedly carrying arms, ammunition and explosive devices. Belfield then alleged that after being told to open his door, Blair opened fire on the squad led by Merai, and it was during the crossfire that the 33-year-old was killed.

But Blair’s family rubbished the allegations levelled against him, stating that he had no gun and had been killed in cold blood. In fact, forensic tests on Blair’s hands showed no evidence of him having fired a weapon.

Today, 17 years and four months later, Blair’s family position has not shifted.
On Friday, Rudo and Dziwonu Blair sat down for an interview with Guyana Chronicle, a short distance away from where their brother had been gunned down by the Target Squad, commonly known, at the time, as ‘the Black Clothes.’

“He was very friendly, outspoken and active,” Rudo said as she reflected on the life of her brother. Shaka, she added, was well respected in his community and had a deep love and appreciation for music. In fact, he owned a sound system (stereo-set) called ‘Merciless’ and would seize every opportunity to display his deejaying skills. They had lived on the same land but in different houses with Rudo’s two-storey house overlooking Shaka’s single flat house which was situated behind her’s. He had lived in the house with his common-law wife, his son, and foster son.

Life for the Blairs’ was pretty much normal until disaster struck just after midnight on Saturday April 6, 2002. “I was sleeping and I heard him screaming,” Rudo recalled, adding that she then jumped out of her bed and peered through her window. With the lights on around the two houses, she had a good view – the Black Clothes had surrounded her brother’s house.

With the Target Squad kicking at his front door, Rudo said her brother, using his landline phone, called the Vigilance Police Station to inform the police there that the ‘Black Clothes’ were at his home. “I could have heard him because he was very loud…I don’t know what the police (at Vigilance) said to him but he came off the phone,” Rudo related. The loud banging on the door had awakened Shaka’s family, and the thought of heavily-armed policemen outside their home had plunged the little boys and their mother into a state of fear and panic.

“The children were up, they were screaming, everybody was screaming,” she recalled, noting that before the Target Squad gained access to the house, her brother enquired why they were at his home at that hour. But it was not long after that the Black Clothes police managed to kick down the door to Shaka’s home. Allegedly holding Shaka at gun point, the Target Squad separated him from his reputed wife and children.

“They had a kind of scuffle with his wife, because from where I was, I saw them grabbing her, exposing all her breast and they carried her with the children to the back of the house,” Rudo recounted.

Once the woman and children were at the back at the house, Rudo said the Target Squad took her brother to the “hallway” and shot him. “He kept asking them ‘what I do, what I do’, and they pulled him out and into the hallway, I heard two gun shots, and his wife started screaming even harder,” Rudo told this newspaper.

Put the grenade in his hands
According to her, once her brother was shot, the Black Clothes Police then dragged him out of the house. “They pulled him out of the house by his legs, down the steps, he was still alive but he was groaning, and I heard the policeman said, where the grenade, take the grenade and put it in his hands,” she contended.

Shaka was reportedly dragged from the house to the road and then thrown into the ‘police’ van before the squad sped away. Rudo told this newspaper that throughout the ordeal, not once did she hear the police enquired about guns and ammunition being at the house, nor did they conduct a search for such weapon or explosive devices as contended during the coroner’s inquest.

Nonetheless, Rudo said once the police left the premise, she ran down to Shaka’s reputed wife and children to get greater insight into what had happened. By which time, hundreds of Buxtonians had been alerted of the extra-judicial killing of her brother – Shaka Blair.
“People started coming out and they started to make noise, and some guys started screaming, walking around the village ringing bells, they wanted to alert everybody, everybody started coming, and in fact no one slept that night because it was chaos in the village after then,” Rudo recalled.

“It was complete chaos in Buxton; the country was in a state of unrest, the entire country because he was a nice guy,” Rudo added.

In January 2003, Stabroek News, in an article headlined ‘The Year in Review 2002,’ painted a graphic picture of the scenes that followed the brutal slaying of Shaka.

“Already angered by TSS tactics in the village which Buxtonians claimed were intended to terrorise them, residents dug up the Embankment road and blocked it with debris (April 7,8). On April 9, thousands took part in a PNCR-organised march through the streets of Georgetown protesting the killing (April 10). Towards the end of April, WPA executive member Eusi Kwayana, in his private capacity, initiated criminal action against Senior Superintendant Steve Merai of the TSS for the murder of Shaka Blair. However, this was set aside on the order of the then Director of Public Prosecutions, Denis Hanomansingh. Kwayana subsequently moved to the court to quash the DPP’s decision to stop the murder charge (April 23-26; May 24),” the Stabroek News chronicled.

It noted, too, that Blair’s funeral, on April 15, had “degenerated into chaos, with persons in the procession throwing missiles at the police, who first fired in the air, and then at the hostile assembly.” The police again had contended that the residents had first fired shots at them but Rudo said it was the police who aggravated the already angry citizens. According to the Stabroek News, after the police dispersed the gathering, some persons returned with implements and dug up the road, and were subsequently dispersed with a combination of tear gas, pellets and live rounds. Mark Nelson was among those injured in the ordeal.

Never a gun man
Dziwonu Blair, who was sleeping at the time his brother was killed by the police, refuted claims that Shaka had in his possession guns and ammunition, and was wanted for a robbery. “For me, he was never a gunman; I can’t remember ever seeing him with a gun,” Dziwonu told this newspaper. He also trashed the reports given by the police that Shaka had opened fire on them. “Nobody likes to be shot, and when you pelt shots at anybody, whether police or soldier, they does look for cover, and the way that place was situated, the first shot anybody would have hear, they would have looked for cover, and if Shaka did shoot at them, he would have run away, he would have gotten away because nobody know this place more than us,” Dziwonu reasoned.

He said Shaka could not have shot at the police because he had no gun. Dziwonu pointed out that there was no evidence to suggest that there was a “shootout” in Shaka’s house besides the shots fired by the police.

To date, the reason behind Shaka’s murder remains a mystery for the masses. Dziwonu, though not certain, said it could have been linked to an incident that occurred on April 1. He explained that the escapees from the February 23, 2002 jailbreak had reportedly hijacked Army Officer Christine King’s car in Golden Grove and had abandoned it Buxton. “That very night I rode up on a bicycle and I met the car right out on the four corner here and I asked what this car doing here like this? Shaka turned and tell me, you could have come and hear a man get ****,” Dziwonu recalled.

He said his brother would later explain that the escapees, upon abandoning King’s car, hijacked another man’s car. Shaka, according to Dziwonu, jokingly tantalised the young man about the incident. The young man reportedly told his foster father (a big businessman) and mother about the incident. The businessman, according to Dziwonu had “police links.”

Rudo had actively participated in the inquest, though studying at the Cyril Potter’s College of Education (CPCE) but was forced to stop after she was threatened – the first time by a teacher, whose husband was part of the Target Squad.

“I didn’t say anything (when she threatened me) but the night when I was on my way home, a guy came out of a vehicle and threatened me with a gun; he was the police guy,” she recalled.

After reporting the matter, Rudo took a decision to stop participating in the inquest. She had also quitted CPCE but rejoined years later. Rudo said it would be great to see justice served but said she is fearful for her life. “I would really like to see it reopened but I am scared,” she told this newspaper.