Lindo Creek massacre…Mother on a mission to unearth the truth

By Dale Andrews  While the government has closed the chapter on the Lindo Creek massacre, one woman is still on a mission to unearth the real truth about the death of her son and brother-in-law who were among the eight miners killed in that mining camp six years ago. Jackie Arokium, who lost her son, Dax, and his uncle, Cedric, in the tragedy that was uncovered on June 21, 2008 tragedy, has not given up hope on definite closure to a crime that had gripped Guyana for the better part of five years.

Jackie Arokium (RIGHT) could not control her emotion after paying a floral tribute at the tomb which contains the remains of her son Dax and his fellow miners.

The Guyana administration blamed the now dead Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins and his gang for the massacre, but this explanation has been countered by a number of persons who are almost convinced that the miners were killed by members of the joint services who were hunting the wanted man, and who subsequently burnt the bodies beyond recognition to “cover their tracks”. Mrs. Arokium is the wife of Leonard Arokium who owned the mining operation at Lindo Creek. She recently travelled from the United States of America to celebrate her birthday, which incidentally coincided with the anniversary of the massacre. She held a thanksgiving service to commemorate both events, and on Friday last she placed flowers at the two tombs in Le Repentir Cemetery where the remains of her son, brother in law and the other miners who were slaughtered, are interred. Four years after the deaths, on September 11, 2012, the remains inclusive of feet, bones and skulls among other body parts, of the eight miners Nigel Torres, Bunny Harry Clifton Wong, Dax Arokium, his uncle Cedric, Compton Speirs, Horace Drakes and Lancelot Lee were placed in three coffins and then into two tombs. However, the two tombs only bore the names of Clifton Wong and Nigel Torres, a fact that has greatly disappointed Jackie Arokium and other family members who had to search through bushes and a flooded cemetery to locate them on Friday. “At least they could have put them in different graves, so we could have something to identify our loved ones, individually,” observed Mrs. Arokium on Friday. The day before, she spoke for the first time about the tragedy, when she visited Kaieteur News. Mrs. Arokium was in at work in New York on Saturday, June 21, 2008, when she received a call on her cellular phone. She knew it was an overseas call and was anxious to answer it. After all, most of her family members were back in Guyana and like many other persons in the diaspora, she longed to hear from them whenever the opportunity presented itself. But the caller at the other end of the line said nothing and the call eventually went dead. Minutes later her phone rang again but this time it was her daughter who was also living in the United States of America–the news had travelled fast. “I just had this bad feeling because I had missed a call from overseas and now my daughter was calling me…When she called she said, ‘Mommy’ and when I said ‘Yes’, she did not say another word for a while.” Anxiety was building. “I said to her, ‘what happed? Something happened?’ and she said ‘Yes mom, Dax and Uncle Whitey died’,” Mrs. Arokium recalled. Even a Guyanese neighbor, who was also in the United States, contacted her with a report about the tragedy. She was not told of the circumstances under which her son and his uncle met their deaths, but at the time, Guyana was in the midst of a crime wave with the notorious wanted man Rondell Rawlins running wild. Mrs. Arokium was fully aware of the spiraling crime rate in her home country where she had left her husband and sons behind but she never anticipated that it would affect her family. “I really didn’t know what happened but the thought that somebody killed them, that did cross my mind,” she said. “When my daughter called with the news, I thought I was dreaming but when the neighbour called, that’s when I exploded in tears.” Mrs. Arokium said that her employers recognised her grief and mercifully sent her home. It was only then she learnt something about how her son and his uncle met their deaths. “My eldest daughter told me about this incident with the army killing and burning them and these sort of things.” Mrs. Aroklium explained that at first there was some doubt about the circumstances of the incident as it was reported to her. Then there was denial. “This can’t be true.” Eventually reality stepped in; there were numerous media reports of how her son and his other crew members met their deaths, each detailing a gruesome scenario. According to Mrs. Arokium, she never sat down and properly digested what she had heard; she tried desperately to bar it from her thoughts, but of course that was mission impossible. “I did not want to feel the pain, so for a long period of time I didn’t want to know that part.” Now, six years later she can think about it, although it does not feel good at all. “I try to envision what was taking place with my son; the fear. Maybe he was begging for his life. I can talk to you about it now but at that time I didn’t even want to even think about it,” Mrs. Arokium said. She recalled speaking to her husband a few days after the incident and asking him, “How did Dax look? Is he peaceful?” But the answer from her husband was “Dax? You can’t know Dax anymore because he was badly burnt.” She burst into tears. Mrs. Arokium said that what made her angry was the posture of the government at the time. It appeared to be doing nothing to satisfy the anxiety of the relatives of the dead men. She believes to this day that the authorities did little to allay their suspicions that something was amiss about the circumstances surrounding the incident. “They found my son’s cell phone, someone was using the phone and what did they do, they just put the man on $10,000 station bail and released him.” There is no clear answer as far as she is concerned, even though the police subsequently claimed that they had an eyewitness to the crime. A few months after the incident Rawlins was finally killed at a location near Kuru-Kururu, and for the government, the Lindo Creek massacre had died with him. Even though she contemplated many times to visit her son’s grave in order to satisfy her soul, Mrs. Arokium said that she was dissuaded from doing so. “They keep telling me, there’s nothing there.” She was unaware that her son’s remains were buried in two tombs among those of his workmates. She subsequently read it in on the internet and it led to her failing her examinations. “I could not concentrate. It was a time when I had my finals to write and when I saw that, I freaked out and I had to go home from the school. They gave me three days off but when I had to write the exams I failed,” Mrs. Arokium explained. Last week she held a thanksgiving service and went in search of her son’s final resting place. She found it last Friday and so emotional were those few minutes at the two tombs that those who were with her were almost moved to tears. She waded through tall grass and flood waters to access the tombs where she laid flowers. But that is not the end of her mission. “Of course!” she exclaimed when asked if she would like to see a commission of inquiry similar to the one now being held to probe the death of Dr Walter Rodney. “I would really love for them to hold a commission of inquiry,” Mrs. Arokium said. “This must not be forgotten just like that,” she added.