Wes­ley Gib­bings

The Op­po­si­tion Al­liance for Change (AFC) says it has re­tained the ser­vices of a Trinida­di­an pathol­o­gist to wit­ness the post mortems on the bod­ies of the three pro­test­ers shot and killed dur­ing last Wednes­day's protests in Lin­den. He is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in the coun­try to­mor­row and rel­a­tives of the dead have asked that the au­top­sies be de­layed un­til the Port-of-Spain-based pathol­o­gist ar­rives.

The three bod­ies were air-lift­ed out of Lin­den, bound for the George­town mor­tu­ary on Fri­day, by­pass­ing roads that con­tin­ue to be bar­ri­cad­ed by protest­ing res­i­dents of the town. About four peo­ple in­jured in the in­ci­dent re­main ward­ed at a dis­trict hos­pi­tal. Op­po­si­tion ac­tivist David Hinds told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day there was anger in the com­mu­ni­ty that the he­li­copters could al­so have been used to shut­tle the in­jured to more mod­ern fa­cil­i­ties in the cap­i­tal city. The Gov­ern­ment has promised a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion but the AFC wants in­ter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion in a full-scale en­quiry in­to the killings.

The ma­jor­i­ty Op­po­si­tion, A Part­ner­ship for Na­tion­al Uni­ty (AP­NU), how­ev­er, has sided with the Don­ald Ramo­tar ad­min­is­tra­tion in its pref­er­ence for an en­quiry,ß com­pris­ing na­tion­als on­ly. The pro­test­ers were killed af­ter the po­lice opened fire on demon­stra­tors. The po­lice claimed live am­mu­ni­tion was not used.