This morning our country awoke to the sad news that 11 persons were gunned down in a brutal, cowardly act by criminals. I say cowardly because only sick, demented cowards could kill defenceless children.

I would like, on behalf of the Government and all the people of our country to extend our deepest condolences to the families and relatives of those who have been so brutally murdered.

Around 2.00 am last night, a group of armed criminals left Buxton and attacked several houses at the back of Lusignan, brutally executing most of the people in those houses and wounding others. This attack followed an earlier attack on the Tactical Services Unit compound which, clearly, in retrospect was a diversion for these criminal minds. Execution was the motive. It could not have been robbery because these families are poor. It was intended to spread terror on the East Coast and in our country. We cannot allow this to be achieved.

I have asked the Prime Minister and several Ministers to visit the affected community. I plan to visit sometime later today to talk to the people because I know that they are upset and I can understand why. I know that there is a tremendous amount of fear on the East Coast and that we need to alleviate the fear that these communities have. Because of this, I met this morning with the security forces and my instructions are clear that we have to dominate the East Coast.
They need to mobilize; it may take a bit of time to do so because they have to bring people in line, the policemen, and soldiers have to be brought from other bases. I expect by the end of the day that we will see a visible presence of the security forces on the East Coast, in the communities. I said I want static presence as well as mobile patrols in the villages. We have to ensure that this atmosphere of fear on the East Coast disappears. We also have to simultaneously hunt down these criminals.

From my briefing I know that the anger not only stems from the criminals, but it seems as though from the comments from quite a few of the residents from whom I spoke with on the telephone that the Police did not arrive on time. They arrived almost over an hour after the reports were made and that when they called to several stations that they did not get a receptive ear. The Commissioner of Police will fully investigate this and I can assure you that action will be taken if we find this to be true. We increase the resources substantially to these stations and they have to respond in people?s time of need.

As I said before, I think that the motive is to spread terror on the East Coast and it has succeeded to some extent because there is a significant amount of fear in the people. We have to be careful at the national level that this does not succeed because it could be exploited by the criminals and others to spread ethnic tension and I want to urge every Guyanese to ensure that the act of a few criminals is not interpreted in any way of ethnic lines. These are criminals and we have to hunt them down and all the country should be supportive of the efforts of the security forces to hunt them down. I hope that like the past two days when the soldiers? were gunned down that we are not going to have ambiguous statements coming out from the leaders of this society because some of them still think that Buxton does not have criminals hiding out there in face of all the evidence to the contrary. I hope that they too will support the fight of the security forces to hunt down these criminals.

These are just a few preliminary comments that I wanted to make here because the information is still unfolding.

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President meets with families of victims of Lusignan shooting
-expresses his condolences-vows action will be taken

Georgetown, GINA, January 26, 2008

President Bharrat Jagdeo and a team today ventured into the village of Lusignan on the East Coast of Demerara which has been plunged into a state of mourning and grief following the cold-blooded murder of 11 of its residents, including children, early this morning by criminal elements.
The Head of State’s visit followed a press conference he hosted in which he described the act by the criminals as brutal and cowardly.
“I say cowardly because only sick, demented cowards could kill defenceless children. I would like, on behalf of the Government and all the people of our country to extend our deepest condolences to the families and relatives of those who have been so brutally murdered,” President Jagdeo said at today’s press conference.
Visiting the homes of the victims today, the President attempted to console some of those who were in deep grief, while the enormity of the act was evident with bullet holes in some walls and bloody bed sheets and other objects in sight.
Some described the criminals’ weapons as huge and bullets large. They also confirmed earlier expressed fears that robbery was not the criminals’ motive but mayhem and murder since the criminals randomly moved to different homes carrying out their murderous acts.
Thousands of relatives from neighbouring villages came out in support of the families and expressed their anger and disappointment that security forces did not respond in a timely manner when called upon to assist during the time of the incident.
President Jagdeo explained that he would be investigating the matter fully and telephone records will be checked and if it is shown that this is so, then action will be taken against these security personnel.
The residents are claiming that they telephoned several police stations in the surrounding areas such as the Vigilance Police Station but were instead given different numbers to call. They also told the President that it took the police about an hour and a half to get to the scene of the crime.
Many angry residents stated that they want action to be taken by the Authorities in this matter as the lives of several innocent children have been lost.
The Head of State assured the residents that the security forces, including the Joint Services have been put on full alert and will be dispatched to the East Coast villages. They have also been instructed to pursue the criminal gang who allegedly perpetrated the act while moves are being made to resuscitate Community Policing Groups.
Only recently, the President announced at a press conference that following a shoot-out between police and criminals at Mahaicony, three weapons were recovered and the weapons included two belonging to the Guyana Defence Force and were issued to the Ministry of National Development during the 1970s. Following this, Army records revealed that over 200 weapons were issued to the Ministry during the 1970s as well.
The 1970s was during the time when the former People’s National Congress (PNC) was in office and President Jagdeo said an investigation is being launched to ascertain the number of weapons issued to the Ministry and to other agencies, if any, and how many have not been returned. He had stated too that what needed to be queried was how some of these weapons got into the hands of criminal elements.