Almost 10 years after the eight miners were killed, the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the Lindo Creek Massacre, which has been dubbed a “kangaroo commission” is set to commence the first set of public hearings this morning at the Ministry of the Presidency’s Department of Public Service on Waterloo Street, Georgetown.
According to reports, another set of public hearings is set for February 19 to 22. The hearings will be heard from 09:00h to 16:00h.
Retired Justice Donald Trotman, 80, is the lone commissioner who was selected
Retired Justice Donald Trotman
by President David Granger to oversee the CoI. Trotman had said that the main objective of the CoI was to find the truth and to bring healing and closure to the nation as a whole. He said he hoped that the Lindo Creek and other inquiries would help bring about reconciliation among Guyanese. Justice Trotman, who has decades of experience serving in the legal profession, said that the process could not be seen as a one-man show, but rather the Commission would include all persons who know and have information and come forward to say what happened, in the national interest and in the interest of Government.
President Granger had described Lindo Creek as a “massacre of the innocence”, saying that his Government believed the way the investigation was handled indicated that there was a high level of collusion. He had also rejected suggestions to extend the CoI’s focus to several years before 2008 when other major criminal activities had plagued the country.
“We are not going backwards, we are going forward,” he had observed. Some time between June 12, 2008 and June 24, 2008, miners Cecil Arokium, Dax Arokium, Compton Speirs, Horace Drakes, Clifton Wong, Lancelot Lee, Bonny Harry and Nigel Torres were shot and killed, and their bodies burnt at the Upper Berbice River mining camp which was being operated by Leonard Arokium.
Retired Justice Trotman is the father of Government Minister Raphael Trotman. This is just one of the reasons why the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has expressed scepticism about participating and supporting the work of the Commission as the Party believes that given the manner in which the CoI was dragged constituted and the commentary from senior Government officials, it is designed to achieve a political outcome and continue the Government’s programme of witch-hunting Opposition personalities.
The PPP/C has even said that the inquiry should have started from the period 1998 when the real wave of ethno-political violence commenced, which would assist in addressing the root cause of the violence.
