GEORGE­TOWN-The Eu­ro­pean Union has wel­comed the Guyana gov­ern­ment's com­mit­ment to hold an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the events that led to the shoot­ing deaths of three peo­ple protest­ing elec­tric­i­ty hikes in the min­ing town of Lin­den on Wednes­day.

In a state­ment, the Eu­ro­pean Union del­e­ga­tion in Guyana said it was urg­ing the au­thor­i­ties to launch the probe "as soon as pos­si­ble" and en­dorsed a state­ment is­sued ear­li­er by the Unit­ed States, Britain and Cana­da that ap­pealed to all par­ties to "work to­geth­er in a spir­it of na­tion­al uni­ty to pre­vent any fur­ther vi­o­lence in­com­pat­i­ble with the right of peo­ple to peace­ful protest."

The Eu­ro­pean Union said it want­ed the ex­ist­ing ten­sion be re­solved through an open and in­clu­sive di­a­logue. Mean­while, the US-based Caribbean Guyana In­sti­tute for Democ­ra­cy (CGID) has strong­ly con­demned the in­ci­dent and is sup­port­ing calls for a com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the mat­ter.

"The peo­ples of the Caribbean re­gion must ex­press out­rage at these killings and sol­i­dar­i­ty with the black pop­u­la­tion in Guyana," said CGID pres­i­dent Rick­ford Burke, ask­ing "what de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­ern­ment will shoot and kill pro­test­ers who block a bridge?" He urged Op­po­si­tion leader Brigadier David Granger to be more as­sertive.