Five years later…Are the Lusignan massacre survivors moving on?

Jan 28, 2013 News

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By Rehana Ashley Ahamad

Year after year, articles are featured in the media to highlight the extent of which the Lusignan Massacre survivors are recovering. This year, I took up the responsibility of going to the still troubled village.
Friday last was my first visit to the area where 11 persons, including five children were murdered in cold, if not frozen blood as they slept in the comforts of their own homes five years ago on Saturday last (January 26), and I was nervous.

As I stood at the beginning of the street and stared into the short lane which had just about a dozen humble homes, I started getting flashbacks of the scenes which were repeatedly aired on the television. I was about 13 years old at that time, and like many others, I too was traumatized.
I wanted to talk to the families, but I was scared; scared of making them remember that fateful night with all the horrible emotions that I imagine came with it.
Nonetheless, I tried to put my thoughts behind, and my first step was the Thomas household.
It was the first of the five homes to be attacked that night. Theirs was the first house located just at the head of the narrow street corner up ahead.
Soon enough, I was having a chat with the surviving members of the Thomas family. According to Gomattie Thomas, the wife and mother of the late Clarence Thomas, 11-year-old Ron and 12-year-old Vanessa Thomas, every memory of that night would cause her to have intense headaches.
Coming on to this time of the year, Thomas said that she cannot help but recall the events.
Mrs. Thomas said that upon hearing the gunshots, her husband, Clarence Thomas opted to take a look.
And as he tried to push in the door as the killers were trying to enter the house, the gunmen riddled the door with bullets. The 52-year-old man’s body was left lying on the landing atop the stairs. There were about 20 men armed with weapons. The killers drove around the village in a minibus.
Mrs. Thomas recalled during that the attack, when she wanted to come out from her hiding and have the gunmen shoot her too, but she could not do so. She said that she just froze. She could not scream, cry, or move.

She instinctively curled up at the side of her bed next to a curtain which was the only thing that separated her from the ruthless gunmen.
“I just sit there by the curtain looking at the man’s boots while he stand there shooting my children,” Thomas recalled. “I wanted to come out and let them shoot me too, but I couldn’t move or do anything.”
She noted that it was only after she heard her son Howard who was 19 years old at the time answering to a neighbour’s call that she felt as though she could move.
“Is when I hear he talk then I feel like I get something to live for. Suddenly I could have move,” Mrs. Thomas said.
She added that when she switched on the light in her house, and it was then that she saw her two children, 11-year-old son, Ron and her 12-year-old daughter Vanessa slaughtered in their beds. Ron was shot in his sleep while Vanessa was pulled from her bed, and despite begging and screaming for her life, she was cold bloodedly gunned down.
Mrs. Thomas recalled seeing her son Roberto who was just five years old at the time, crawling to her, with his entrails protruding.
By that time neighbours started to rush in to lend assistance and both Roberto and Howard Thomas were rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital where they were admitted for a few months.
Hers was a happy family, she said. Mrs. Thomas recalled just hours before the tragedy when she was surrounded by her husband and four children. They were all laughing and chatting in the bottom flat of their small home.
They were also talking on the phone with her eldest son who had been staying in Bartica at the time.
“The night before everybody was happy. Them children bin playing fight, fight over them father, saying who love he the most, and they was hugging he up, so I said that is me husband and that I love he to, and I hug he. And the children hug we, and we laugh so hard that night that it even disturbed the neighbours,” a sad Mrs. Persaud recalled.
She said that like the others, nothing could have prepared her for what was about to happen next.
Nonetheless, as far as recovering goes, the Thomas family said that while they can never truly recover from such an incident, things have become better in the last five years and the family is trying to cope. There are still times when they would remember that night and cry, but they are thankful to be alive and to still have the strength to make it through each passing day.
Mrs. Thomas said that the residents have become more vigilant, as they would enquire from every stranger visiting the area as to the purpose of their visit to the area.
She noted that had she been the owner of a gun that night, she would have definitely ensured that she had killed at least one of the men who ruined her peace and stole the lives of her husband and two very innocent children.

Meanwhile, when Kaieteur News visited Rajkumar Harilall, the man who lost his wife, 32-year-old Mohandai Gourdat, and their two children; four year old Seegobin, and ten-year-old Seegopaul Harilall, it seemed as though he is attempting to move on.
After five years, Rajkumar Harilall has finally found himself a female companion. She is currently living with him in the same house that his family was killed.
Last Saturday Mr. Harilall showed me around his home. There were still pictures of his wife and children taken in their happier times hanging on the walls and in cabinets.
To maybe feel closer to his family, everything in his house has remained the same; even the bullet holes and the damaged furniture remain. The bullet-riddled cabinet and wardrobe are till there. Harilall has left everything as it is.
His new companion said that although it has been five years after, and Harilall has moved on with his life a bit, he would still breakdown at times when he remembers his family. Apart from their birthdays and death anniversary, Harilall becomes distraught during the time of the court proceedings on the matter. She explained that sometimes to deal with the pain, Harilall would consume alcohol before appearing in court. He does not want to go to court anymore. The families collectively agreed that the court hearings have only been causing them tremendous grief.
Harilall, called Bobby, had left Guyana for Trinidad just a few days before the carnage.
“I wake up to cook and prepare for work and they called me and told me that I had to travel to Guyana right away, that my wife and children were wounded and were being taken to the hospital. At the time, I was thinking that nothing really serious had happened to them,” he recalled.
Nevertheless, he immediately secured a flight. While there, he got the news that his entire family had been wiped out.
“They were showing it on the television over there, and right away I collapsed. The officials at the airport assisted me and asked me if I could travel, and I told them that I would manage,” Harilall said.
“The life just went out of me. I had just left less than a week ago. It was them I was living for,” he added.
Had he been home during that time, he would not have opened the door for the men to enter. He said he would’ve made sure that they were properly hidden.
Also in the house at the time was Gourdat’s nephew who remained under his bed as his cousins rushed out to assist their mother. He was five years old at the time. He is still troubled by the incident.
By the time I had reached the Mohamed’s household, the third of the five houses to be attacked, it was evening, and an inter-faith service was being conducted by the members of the Indian Arrival Committee. Both his parents were there. I observed as his mother wept all through the ceremony. She seemed to have been just as distraught as she was when I saw her on the television shortly after the killings.
Theirs was the only house that the gunmen did not manage to gain entry to. Bibi Mohamed Khan who had been staying with her parents while her husband was away on business, said on Saturday last that although many things have changed the hurt that they feel is still there.
She said that even holidays and birthdays are no longer the same in their home.
“Usually around holiday time, especially the Muslim religious holidays, my mother would cook up nice things and invite some relatives and friends, but after that night she no longer does that,” Khan said.
Theirs was the only of the five homes that the gunmen did not break into. Instead, the gunmen sprayed the wooden building with bullets.
Khan explained that while everybody had gone to bed, her brother, 22-year-old Shazam Mohamed was in the living room watching television when his car alarm went off.
On realizing that something was wrong, Khan said that her brother warned them not to come out from the bedroom.
“He tell we not to come out, and like he walk go into the kitchen to peep the car from the kitchen window. I think they must have seen he shadow and then we just start hearing gunshots nonstop. I grab me little brother and we run into my parents’ room. A couple seconds after we stop hearing the shots, me father said how he get shoot. Then we hear a groaning coming from outside, so me and me mother rush out. Is then I see my big brother lying on the floor in the kitchen in a pool of blood,” Khan recalled.
She noted that her brother, taking his final breaths, asked his mother for some water to drink and for her to sprinkle some on his face. As soon as she did so, he died. He was a budding accountant.
Meanwhile, his father, Nadir Mohamed, a farmer, had his feet badly damaged by the bullets. While he can no longer do many of the things that engaged him, Mohamed is thankful to God that he could still walk. Although he can no longer do his farming, Mr. Mohamed provides for his family by driving a taxi.
Khan explained that her other brother is currently doing well in school. It was also a surprise to them that he did well at his National Grade Six Assessment Examination which was shortly after the terrifying ordeal.
“My big brother Shazam used to push him a lot when it comes to his books and studies, so we really happy that he doing well,” Khan said.
The next house in line was the Baksh residence. Shalim Baksh was the man who came out from his hiding place under the bed to save his family.
It has been five years, and as far as moving on goes for this family, Baksh’s wife Bibi has remarried, and his daughter, Shazeda now holds a job.
During a brief chat, Shazeda explained that while they have somewhat moved on, there are days when they would remember those few minutes of terror, and would feel crushed all over again.
She explained that till today, her mother would still contain her grief. She was 14 years old at the time of the incident.
She remembers calling out to her mother who was with her father in the bottom flat of their home, after waking up to the sound of gunshots.
Her parents, who had also heard the shots, joined her on the upper flat of their house as the men ordered the family to open their door, but they were too terrified to move, and within seconds their front louvre windows were shattered and some of the men entered.
“I went into the last room and we hid under the bed. My mother first, me, and then my father. He was so big that he did not fit comfortably under the bed. When they (gunmen) came in, they saw his foot and told him to come out. They asked for the rest of us and he told them that we were downstairs,” Shazeda had said.
The gunmen went downstairs and sprayed the apartment with bullets before returning upstairs.
When the killers put the first bullet into her father’s body, which was lying inches away from her, Shazeda could see his body twitching as the slugs penetrated his flesh.
Her father had begged the killers to spare his life, but after pumping him with bullets, they fired several shots under the bed, none of which found the intended target.
“While I was under the bed, I knew they would kill my father. After they left, my father was trying to say something but no words came out of his mouth. He came out (from under the bed) and saved us all. If he didn’t, they would have checked under the bed and found us and kill us,” Shazeda said.
The last house to be attacked was the one belonging to 56-year-old Rooplall Seecharan who was shot while he sat in a chair in his living room watching television along with his wife, 52-year-old Dhanrajie called “Sister” and a relative’s daughter, 11-year-old, Raywattie Ramsingh. As of last Friday evening, no one was home. I later learnt that no one lives at the house at present.
The community of Lusignan, following the attack, became a household name; that too, for all the wrong reasons. It became the centre of attention for Guyana and the Caribbean.
Residents say that persons from foreign countries, would, from time to time, visit the area and look around at the houses that were riddled by bullets by heartless criminals.
To date, no one knows for sure the real motive for the attack, although it was reported that the now dead gunman Rondell ‘Fine Man’ Rawlins took responsibility for the attack, declaring it an act of vengeance for the disappearance of his girlfriend, and unborn baby.
The carnage immediately went down in Guyana’s history as one of the most brutal events to have ever occurred here, along with the Jonestown massacre.
The survivors all say that while “Fine Man” has been killed, they do not feel that they have received full justice.
“We don’t even know if was really “Fine Man” we just hear that he said is he, and that he dead,” one resident said.

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