Shir­van Williams

The gov­ern­ment of Guyana, led by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Ramo­tar, held sev­er­al meet­ings yes­ter­day with the two main op­po­si­tion groups-the Al­liance for Change and A Part­ner­ship for Na­tion­al Uni­ty-in an ef­fort to try and reach a peace­ful so­lu­tion to the vi­o­lence in Lin­den. How­ev­er, a source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said pro­test­ers marched and held a demon­stra­tion in front of the Min­istry of Home Af­fairs yes­ter­day, de­mand­ing a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion, as well as the sus­pen­sion of the po­lice in­volved. The Guyanese news­pa­per the Stabroek News al­so re­port­ed yes­ter­day that the Lin­den demon­stra­tors had re­sumed their protests, blockad­ing the road and light­ing fires. Mean­while, the Guyanese gov­ern­ment is­sued a state­ment ex­press­ing the Pres­i­dent's de­ter­mi­na­tion to in­ves­ti­gate the "re­cent tragedy" in Lin­den which had "cre­at­ed much an­guish."

The Guyanese Con­sul to T&T, Ernie Ross, said in a brief in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day that the loss of life was re­gret­table and he hoped law and or­der would pre­vail. He added that this was not the first time that Guyana had gone through this type of up­heaval and he hoped good sense would re­turn to the peo­ple of the coun­try. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Ja­mal Mo­hammed, who al­so spoke in a brief in­ter­view, said at this time the Gov­ern­ment did not know much about the sit­u­a­tion and was wait­ing for a com­pre­hen­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­fore is­su­ing any state­ment. He did say, how­ev­er, that no T&T na­tion­als were hurt or af­fect­ed by the ri­ot. Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi said the sit­u­a­tion in Guyana was cer­tain­ly one for se­ri­ous con­cern and added that peo­ple of this coun­try should take note of the "death­ly re­ac­tion to fi­nan­cial cri­sis that the world faces."