IT was an emotional scene at the Le Repentir Cemetery as relatives of the Lindo Creek massacre victims broke down in tears upon viewing the final resting place of their beloved – some for the very first time.

The Lindo Creek massacre victims – Cedric Arokium, Dax Arokium, Compton Speirs, Horace Drakes, Nigel Torres, Bonny Harry, Clifton Wong and Lancelot Lee – were laid to rest on September 11, 2012, in the absence of their relatives with the exception of Nigel Torres. The burial took place on the instructions of the Guyana Police Force; some four years after their charred remains were discovered at Lindo Creek in the Upper Berbice River, Region 10 on June 21, 2008.

Thursday, June 21, 2018 marked 10 years since that gruesome discovery at Lindo Creek, and it was evident that the wounds were still fresh. Amid cries for justice, relatives expressed bitterness over the State’s decision to lump the remains of six of the miners into one casket. The situation was further compounded when relatives, at the 11th hour, were told that the three tombs, in which the remains were placed, were not all placed next to each other.

In tears, Dax Arokium’s mother – Jacklyn Arokium explained that for the past three years, she was maintaining two tombs, just to be told days ago, that the remains of her son; her brother-in-Law, Cedric Arokium; and four other miners, were placed into another tomb about four rows away from where Nigel Torres and Bonny Harry were laid to rest.

In search of answers, Mrs Arokium with the help of a journalist, and directions from the Georgetown Mayor and City Council back in 2015 had located the two tombs in the Le Repentir Cemetery, in which ‘all eight miners’ were said to be placed.

“Since 2015, I have been maintaining that place. Every year I come, I do something. I would go there and cry my heart out … only to be told that is not where my son was placed,” Mrs Arokium said as she broke down in tears.

Wayne Lee, brother of Lancelot Lee, explained that they were only told of the third tomb, just days ago. “Two days before we came to check on the tombs, then we realised that the two that Mrs Arokium was maintaining, did not have the remains of all the miners, and that there was a third tomb.

This third tomb, according to them, consists of the six miners that were not identified by DNA,” Lee explained. He noted that only the remains of Bonny Harry and Nigel Torres were placed in separate caskets and tombs. The third tomb had no name or date written on it but just a lot number.

But this news did not sit well with the relatives of the six miners whose remains were “dumped” into one casket on the basis that their remains were not identified when the DNA tests were conducted.

“They bury them like dogs, like dogs. Like dogs that you does just pick up and bury,” one relative screamed as she wailed uncontrollably.

REALLY HARD
“This is hard, this is really hard; imagine you can’t even identify the tomb. This is hard, man, this is just heartless,” another relative added.

But while the persons in charge of the cemetery from the City Council are maintaining that the third tomb was placed a short distance away, Mrs. Torres has a different recollection.

Torres, who was present for the burial in September 2012, is maintaining that all three tombs were placed next to on another. “I saw three tombs, I could remember three tombs, and the guys that were preparing them, they asked for names, and I give them Nigel’s name,” she maintained. Nonetheless, wreaths were laid on the three tombs.

The relatives of the slain miners had gathered at the Le Repentir Cemetery following a Memorial Walk from Square of the Revolution to the final resting place. Thursday’s heavy showers did not deter their spirit, and so through the rain they walked to the cemetery as the sound of gospel music filled the air.

Chairman of the Lindo Creek Commission of Inquiry (COI), Justice (Ret’d) Donald Trotman, though he did not participate in the walk, visited the burial ground on Thursday, and addressed the grieving relatives.

Informing those present that his visit was a formal one, Justice Trotman said, “This occasion is an important and integral part of our inquiry, just as our visit to the camp site at Lindo Creek was. We were there to confirm the fact of what happened there, and we are here today to confirm the fact of what happened here.”

He added: “A religious service and burial are the proper ways of saying farewell to our fellow human beings and of ensuring that in a civilised society, the dead are entitled to be treated with the same dignity and respect as the living are.”

Justice Trotman said the visit to the cemetery is in keeping with the commission’s commitment to find the truth so that justice, closure and reconciliation could result for the benefit of the inquiry and the surviving families of the murdered miners.
Before leaving the cemetery, the relatives released yellow helium balloons into the air.