The Freddie Kissoon column...Myth and reality: The “Fine Man” infamy

The Freddie Kissoon column…Myth and reality: The “Fine Man” infamy

Sep 01, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The saga of “Fine Man” may contain misleading information. It can lead us away from the facts. Adam Harris yesterday wrote that a brutal era has come to an end. In its yesterday edition, Stabroek News editorialized in a vein identical to Adam’s. Both Harris and the Stabroek News see a ubiquitous role for “Fine Man” in a concatenation of psychotic violence.

They are not alone in this type of assessment. A majority of Guyanese who read the plethora of press releases on extremely sickening crime scenes believe that “Fine Man” was miraculously active throughout Guyana. The police find the same ballistics evidence at all these crime scenes. Is this true?

One of the confusing elements in the “Fine Man” drama is the alleged call “Fine Man” made to Kaieteur News. A strategically placed state security official told me that if there was a call, it was not the voice of “Fine Man.” He stressed to me that the security high command rejected that after they did some intelligence checking. I immediately called my Kaieteur colleague, crime reporter Dale Andrews, and shared with him that piece of intelligence. I told Dale I trusted my contact explicitly.

“Fine Man” is purported to have told Kaieteur News that he murdered eleven persons at Lusignan because state security or extra-judicial forces had kidnapped his pregnant partner. But intelligence data does not bear this out. The pregnant girl friend was alienated from “Fine Man” months before she was to deliver.

The relationship was an abusive one, and she had other lovers, including a Bajan. It would seem that the child was not the seed of “Fine Man,” as he is alleged to have said on the phone to Kaieteur News. If you accept the theory of a runaway girl friend, then it could not have been his voice on the phone. Could the telephone call have been a state conspiracy to throw the Lusignan horror on “Fine Man,” so “end of story,” if you know what I mean?

The second myth is the Lindo mining camp. As soon as the camp’s owner, George Arokium, heard about the massacre, he called me. He needed some publicity to stop the Guyanese people from feeling that “Fine Man” and his gang were the perpetrators, because he deeply believed that state security may have been the culprits. We met secretly at the office of Colin Smith, and I informed Kaieteur News and Stabroek News. Mr. Arokium, with his map and his explanation, made sense.

It still makes sense to me, and I say this without fear of contradiction. When you listen to Arokium, then it was not possible for the gang, on the run, to have travelled from Christmas Falls to Lindo Creek to kill the miners without encountering the security forces.

Why burn the camp to attract attention?
The third myth is the ubiquity of Rondell Rawlins. If Rawlins gunned down so many persons, then he is the uneducated leader of top former army officers, some of whom would have contempt for Rawlins. He had to be skilled in logistics and strategy. But he had no army experience. He did the bank job at Rose Hall.

He perpetrated the Lusignan mini-Holocaust. He went on an insane spree in Bartica. He found himself in the jungle at Christmas Falls. He eluded capture at the falls when the joint forces were on his trail. While chasing him down, he went into their path to kill the diamond miners and managed to escape. He turned up at the Linden Highway district.

One must remember that surviving eyewitnesses of Lusignan told the media that the men wore army boots. Witnesses to the mayhem in Bartica numbered the attackers at about fifteen, and they were fitted out with security clothes. Putting the pieces together, one can say that if “Fine Man” had a gang that committed these bestial, inhuman acts, then many of his men operated as if they were former soldiers or police officials.

Assuming that ex-soldiers are (not were) participants, then what was so special about Rawlins to have commanded leadership of these men? He was not a former military officer. He had no special training in warfare. He was not an educated man who could have used charisma to charm and then lead. Even his own pregnant girl friend he could not persuade to remain in his company.

Is Rondell Rawlins taking any secrets to his grave? Maybe he is; but some, not all. There are facts out there waiting to be found by journalistic investigators that may explode the myths about this so-called “super criminal.” Have the police and the media attributed too much adventure and extraordinary skills to Rawlins? Is there another group out there?

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The Freddie Kissoon column…Myth and reality: The “Fine Man” infamy

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