Families of slaughtered miners in disbelief…“When ah hear ‘Fine Man’ in the area ah beg the dredge owner fuh bring meh husband home”

Jun 23, 2008 News

---

When Collette Wong heard that members of the dreaded ‘Fine Man Gang’ were hiding out in an area near the Berbice River, she immediately feared for her husband, 46-year-old Clifton Wong.

Clifton, an expert mechanic, was working with a diamond mining crew near the Berbice River in an area known as Lindo Valley, located some ten miles below Christmas Falls.
So, last week, she pleaded with the owner of the operation, Leonard Arokium, to bring her husband home.
“I told him that he should get to his team and, as a concerned wife, ask him (Clifton) to return.”
But for Clifton Wong, also called ‘Berry,’ and seven other men that plea came too late.
At around 14:00 hrs on Saturday, Leonard Arokium visited his camp and discovered that someone had slaughtered every single member of his crew, before burning their bodies in pieces of tarpaulin.
Those murdered are Clifton Wong, 46, of Norton Street, Wortmanville; Dax Arokium, 29, of Crane Place, South Ruimveldt Park; his uncle Cedric Arokium, called Brother, 51; Bonny Harry, 50, of Zorg, Essequibo; Compton Speirs, 58, of Meten-Meer-Zorg, West Coast Demerara; Horace Drakes, 36, of De Kenderen, West Coast Demerara; Lance Lee, 40, called ‘Piggy’; and a youth who is reportedly from Kwakwani.
But, yesterday, some relatives of the victims, including Wong’s wife, were still unwilling to accept this grim reality.
“I am still hoping that he will show up (alive),” Colette Wong said.
“I know that he is the sort of person who, if things don’t work out (at one camp), would move to another. I am hoping that he had moved to another location (before the attack).”
Her husband, a father of five, had been working in the interior most of his life. According to Mrs. Wong, Cedric left for the interior at around May 27. He promised to return by June 13, in time for one of his daughter’s birthday.
According to Mrs. Wong, her husband would always contact her when he arrived at an interior location. This time, he did not.
After she expressed her concern to camp boss Leonard Arokium, he assured her that he would try to contact the crew by radio and would inform her when he succeeded.
But at around midnight on Saturday, Mrs. Wong heard someone rapping at her front door. Her first thought was that her husband had arrived home.
“I knew that he was the only person who would rap at this time. So I say ‘Berry? Berry?’ And my nephew (who was rapping outside) say is not ‘Berry’. Then he said that he heard that Berry get killed in a shootout.”
She contacted the mining camp boss, Mr. Arokium, who eventually confirmed her worst fears.
“He was very friendly, very hard-working…he loved the interior,” Mrs. Wong said.
There was the same sense of disbelief and despair at the Meten-meer-Zorg home of relatives of Compton Speirs.
Carmen Gittens, a sister of the slain miner, said she was at her home at Wales, West Bank Demerara, when someone informed her by phone of her brother’s death.
She said she last saw her brother in May, before he left for the interior.
“De boss man come and tell me nieces that he went in fuh carry food stuff fuh dem in de camp, but when he reach deh he see everything in de camp scatter and burn up human bones all over.”
Gittens said her brother was a very quiet person and did not deserve such a death.
And at the neighbouring village of De Kenderen, West Coast Demerara, it was chaos over at the home of Horace Drakes’s relatives, who were preparing to visit Speirs’s relatives to get further information about the tragedy.
Drakes’s aunt, Nathalie Hinds, said she first learnt of the tragedy after reading the Kaieteur News.
“I got another relative who is sick in the Georgetown Hospital; so when I was going for the six o’clock visit I see this big headline ‘Eight miners slaughtered,’ so right away I stop de minibus, because I know I got family working in the interior,” Hinds recounted.
She then purchased a copy of the Kaieteur News.
“When I get the paper I get this heavy feeling, and when I start reading I see de name ‘Drakes’ and right away I think was me brother, but is  till I call a Police and dem tell me is me nephew,” she added.
Sobbing uncontrollably, the woman added that, after making several other calls, she then confirmed that it was the same camp that her nephew was working at.
“Me ain’t believe is no gang member kill me nephew. De people who do this had plenty time on dem hand. If was a robbery de people woulda just kill dem but nah burn dem. Bandits don’t got all dem time fuh waste. I find that very strange because they were in the same area hunting for Fine Man Gang… we need answers,” the woman said.
She added that she last saw her nephew some three weeks ago, before he left for the interior. Hinds said her nephew was a very humble person who did all he could to earn an honest living for his four children, Delroy 17, Deon, 15, Delon, 13, Delecia, 9, and Delencia, 8.
Kaieteur News also spoke to relatives of 50-year-old Bonny Harry, the mining camp’s general manager, who lived at Zorg, Essequibo.
They expressed the hope that the persons who slaughtered the eight men would be apprehended soon.
Bonny Harry is survived by his wife, Maureen, and three daughters: Monique, Natola, and Joanne.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds yesterday led a party that included Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee and Acting Chief of Staff Colonel Mark Phillips to the homes of the Arokiums.
There, they expressed condolences to the members of the families of those killed on behalf of President Bharrat Jagdeo and the Cabinet.
In further discussion, the team learnt that the mining camp on the Case Unamco Road was attacked and destroyed, and the miners killed and burnt. During their engagement with the family, President Jagdeo also made contact and extended his personal condolences. A high-level crime scene investigative team, including a pathologist, departed for the area to confirm findings and commence investigations.

---

---