Slain gunmen brought to the city

Jun 18, 2008 News

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Cecil Simeon Ramcharran, also known as ‘Uncle Willie’ and Limpy,’ who once boasted of celebrating his 50th birthday in Buxton, lied about his age, according to one of his siblings. The woman said that he was no older than 40. ‘
Ramcharran and a boy identified as Robin Chung, called ‘Chung Boy’, 16, were shot dead on Monday at Goat Farm, a community on the left bank of the Berbice River some seven miles south of Ituni. Their bodies were brought to Georgetown via aircraft yesterday.
Both bodies were already in white body bags, and the aircraft, after landing at the Ogle Aerodrome, was made to wait at that location for some time before two Police vehicles arrived to ferry the bodies to Georgetown.
The two had reportedly been part of a gang holed up at a camp in the Christmas Falls area, some 90 miles south of Kwakwani, in an area that was uninhabited and said to be miles away from civilization.
The Police raided that camp on June 6 and killed Otis ‘Mud Up’ Fiffee, whose parents gave his age as 21 but later admitted that he was only 17. Fiffee was buried yesterday.
Ramcharran and Chung, as well as others said to be in the camp, were supposed to have been trapped in the jungle, and their deaths from starvation were imminent.
They were also said to have fled almost naked and barefooted and with precious little, given the surprise nature of the Police attack at Christmas Falls.
However, everyone escaped the cordon set up by the Joint Services and ended up on the other side of the river in the vicinity of Ituni.
After killing Ramcharran and Chung, the Joint Services recovered two AK-47 assault rifles, 781 AK-47 rounds, nine AK 47 magazines, ten 16-gauge cartridges, and eight 12-gauge cartridges.
In addition, the ranks recovered a quantity of foodstuff, a variety of clothing, cellular phones, documents, basic medical supplies, and other articles, including one Republic Bank Visa Card in the name of Satyadeow Sawh, one Canadian Bank Gold Card in the name of Sawh, one BeeWee Miles Card in the name of Satyadeow Sawh, one kerosene stove and cooking utensils, 11 GT&T cell phone chips, three Digicel cell phone chips, three cellular phones, two torchlights, one pocket radio, one Koran, one New Testament and one Bible.
The presence of articles of clothing, foodstuff and cooking utensils seemed to fault the early information provided by the Police and the Joint Services.
The two now-dead men eluded the Joint Services from the time they fled the camp at Christmas Falls, until they crossed the Berbice River and hijacked a minibus near Goat Farm, a community located about seven miles from Ituni.
Earlier, the Police captured a 15-year-old lad who has admitted to being a member of the notorious Rondell ‘Fine-Man’ Rawlins Gang that was said to be hiding out at Christmas Falls.
An official said that the teen was arrested near Ituni, Upper Demerara, on Monday, a few hours before Ramcharran and Chung. He was reportedly delirious and starving.
Police say that he readily co-operated with investigators.
Kaieteur News understands that the teen admitted that he was with the gunmen who came under attack at their Christmas Falls hideout two Fridays ago.
He identified some of the gang members, including the now dead ‘Uncle Willie,’ also called ‘Limpy,’ and ‘Chung Boy.’
This newspaper was told that the youth claimed the gang members managed to fashion a raft out of ‘conga pump’ and crossed the Berbice River at a location below Christmas Falls and Itabu Falls.
They allegedly then walked for about three days through very rough terrain. The youth said that he was unable to keep up with the gruelling pace and was eventually left behind.
Noticeably, unlike previous occasions such as the Bartica Massacre and the recent Mahdia accident, where bodies were flown to Ogle Aerodrome, media operatives were not allowed onto the tarmac.
This prompted several criticisms from bystanders, who noted that the killing of the two men marked a significant hurdle in the hunt for the ‘Fine Man Gang,’ and that the Joint Service should have allowed the media the opportunity to show to the Guyanese public at least a picture or video of the dead men, given that they were in body bags and there could not have been any gruesome footage.
‘Uncle Willie,’ who was also called ‘Limpy,’ has been fingered in the killing of Minister Satyadeow Sawh, his two siblings and security guard Curtis Robertson at Earl’s Court, La Bonne Intention, on April 22, 2006. Wanted bulletins had also been issued for him in connection with the Bartica and Lusignan slayings.
Wanted bulletins were issued for both ‘Chung Boy’ and ‘Uncle Willie’ following the brutal killings in Bartica and Lusignan, which claimed the lives of 23 persons, including five children.
And following the raid at the Christmas Falls camp, the Police torched all the buildings there, after they had recovered three FN rifles, four shotguns, and a .32 revolver; two AK-47 magazines, seven FN rifle magazines, and several rounds of ammunition from the gunmen’s well-stocked hideout.
According to a statement from the Police, the three FN rifles were stolen from the Bartica Police Station during the armed attack on that community on February 17, 2008.’
The .32 revolver and two of the shotguns were stolen from the home of Bartica miner Chunilall Babulall.
The Joint Services ranks were said to have also found a diary that provided “incontrovertible evidence” of Rawlins’s planning and execution of the killings at Lusignan and Bartica.

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