Lindo Creek and the need for proper record keeping

Mar 11, 2018 News

By Leonard Gildarie

This past week, the inquiry into the Lindo Creek killings of eight miners got into full swing. I cannot even begin to talk about how much this incident affected me in 2008.
I always believed in my heart that it was not ‘Fineman’ and his gang that cold-bloodedly murdered the miners and then attempted to cover the evidence by burning the bodies.
I was living out of the country, and came back mid-2000s when gangs ran rampant and Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins sincerely believed he was a freedom fighter.
Our newsroom watched in tears, scenes of the Lusignan massacre, and a few weeks later with deep horror, the attack on Bartica, a gateway community, up the Essequibo.
So it was an evening in 2008 that I got a call at Kaieteur News. I needed to meet with someone. Freddie Kissoon had called.
I saw Leonard Arokium at the South Road offices of Catholic Standard and his chilling claims of murder was enough for us to invite Stabroek News. The news was that shocking.
I will not go into the details of the claims of Leonard Arokium, except that he was highly agitated and had travelled hours. I spoke to him recently, and he is resigned that justice would probably never be served.
Arokium’s contentions are that it was impossible for Fineman and his gang to move from the Christmas Falls area, where they were said to be camping, to Lindo Creek. The terrain, which had waterfalls, was just too rough to cross, and it was a fact that the army was on their tails. How could they make a beeline for the camp, risking a possible confrontation with the army tracking them?
So they had the time to attack a camp and then burn bodies?
I am a huge fan of crime series on television. I love watching how forensics and angles and dirt under the nails and fibres all play roles in investigations.
Throughout it all, the importance of the chain of evidence would take forefront. It was with interest I saw news that our local sleuths have been given US training on management of cases and interviewing techniques.
One of the areas, especially in fraud investigations, is the chain of custody and the paper trail.
Investigators on descending upon a fraud scene have to determine who has access to the area and can sign documents and are authorized. They then move to acquire the paper evidence to determine who handled the transactions. Using this, the investigators are able to narrow down the suspects.
I make these points, as it is becoming clear that as we move forward as a country, our emphasis on keeping proper records, including correspondences and reports, in accordance to proper systems…established systems, has to be taken to another level.
This is not only for easy retrieval for analytical purposes, but for possible investigations afterwards.
Too often, at Parliament, in the courts, we hear of cases being thrown out because of poor record keeping or no records at all. It is only when we examine the records that we start to understand where it is we are going wrong.
In the case of Lindo Creek, I am no investigator, but there will have to be records of army movements. It is quite true, the saying that a secret that is known to two persons is not a secret.
The army can be subpoenaed to produce records. There are persons who knew what transpired. It can show movements of army personnel in a particular situation. It can establish whether ranks were in the area for an operation, and therefore could have mistakenly killed the miners or at the least knew what occurred.
The inquiry, I am sure, has the powers to ask for those records.
I want to make it clear that inquiries are just that. It involves questioning, statements, and more questioning.
The burning questions have been aired thousands of times and are there. An inquiry will have to ask the questions people want to have answered with regards to Lindo Creek.
We may find that the conclusions of the inquiry do not bring closure, but it will have to make recommendations for the future.
We have so much to fix, including accountability and transparency in all arms of the government. We have to insist that there will be no shortcuts. Systems and procedures have to be adhered to. The good thing is that steps are being made to have those in place work or appear to work.

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