Shir­van Williams

As in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to the killing of three peo­ple in Lin­den, Guyana, a top po­lice com­man­der who has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for that dis­trict has been re­moved from his post. The top of­fi­cer was re­moved as the gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions to find a peace­ful so­lu­tion to the vi­o­lent protests which led to the killing of three peo­ple on Wednes­day.

It was re­port­ed that af­ter the fa­tal shoot­ings, Min­is­ter of Home Af­fairs, Clement Ro­hee, in a state­ment, di­rect­ed Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Leroy Brumell to make im­me­di­ate changes at the com­mand lev­el of the dis­trict that over­sees Lin­den. The state­ment did not name the com­man­der, but Se­nior Supt Clifton Hick­en heads the E&F Di­vi­sion, cov­er­ing 36 po­lice sta­tions and out­posts in the Up­per De­mer­ara re­gion, in­clud­ing the area sur­round­ing the baux­ite min­ing ar­eas of Lin­den, Itu­ni and Kwak­wani ar­eas and the coun­try's in­te­ri­or.

The Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs said no T&T na­tion­als had been af­fect­ed by the vi­o­lence so far. Naz­i­ma Raghu­bir, a jour­nal­ist for Prime News Inc in Guyana, told the T&T Guardian that the re­quest from the two op­po­si­tion groups-Al­liance for Change and A Part­ner­ship for Na­tion­al Uni­ty-for a com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the shoot­ings was still be­ing dis­cussed.

The two groups have dif­fered on what type of in­quiry should be pur­sued, an in­ter­na­tion­al one or a lo­cal one with in­ter­na­tion­al com­po­nents. Raghu­bir said the protests and demon­stra­tions were not just about the pro­posed hike in elec­tric­i­ty rates, but the res­i­dents of the area said they felt ne­glect­ed and that one of the ma­jor is­sues was un­em­ploy­ment.

She al­so re­vealed that Lin­den was very im­por­tant for peo­ple to gain ac­cess to the in­te­ri­or of the coun­try and that the ma­jor bridge that had been blocked be­fore, now had free flow­ing traf­fic. Res­i­dents con­tin­ued to burn tyres yes­ter­day but there were no more in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence as the gov­ern­ment and the op­po­si­tion con­tin­ue to hold talks along with the pri­vate sec­tor to try and find the best way for­ward.