Georgetown Diary

The Ronald Austin Column

The more things Change, the more they remain the same

There are certain things one cannot ignore in this country. The continued and continuous rise in the cost of living; the revolting condition of the city; the frequency of blackouts; the poor manners of drivers on the road; the poor service in a restaurant or a bank and the schizoid existence that one is forced to lead. The newscasts of the official media describe a country that does not exist and one wonders if this relentless assault on the truth will not lead eventually to some kind of collective nervous breakdown. An example here will prove the point. President Jagdeo was in New York recently and apart from verbally assaulting Rick-ford Burke of the Guyana and Caribbean Institute for Democracy (GCID), he made the astounding claim that Guyana was a fully integrated society. Now nothing is further from the truth. Race relations are at their worst point in our post-independence history. The trouble is that this obvious mendacity has been repeated as the gospel truth for several days in the print and electronic media.

One cannot ignore also the manhunt for Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins. With each passing day he is being made into the mythical hero he is in Buxton. The Jagdeo administration makes him responsible for every crime in the country and they seem unable to capture him. Their last at-tempt at Christmas Falls, up the Berbice River, was a complete fiasco. The Jagdeo people believe that Rawlins was at Christmas Falls when it was attacked by the Police Force and he escaped with five or six others. Even the all-knowing and all-seeing Dr. Luncheon had to confess the other day that he does not know where the most wanted man in the Republic is. I am not going to write about the differences between the Police and the GDF which led to the bungling at Christmas Falls or the irresponsible pratings of the Minister of Home Affairs and other senior officials who gave the impression that Rawlins and his gang faced imminent capture when in fact they were ninety miles away at Goat Farm. In most civilized jurisdictions these gentlemen would have done the honorable thing and resigned.

What I do want to write about is what caught my attention when Rawlins and his gang escaped. They left behind food for several weeks, hammocks, a stereo system, a radio set, items of clothing, medical supplies, a bible, and, now we know, a diary. This triggered a memory from childhood some 49 years ago when another man faced with imminent capture left his clothing and a diary behind. It is interesting how the mind can analogize.

In 1959 one of the largest manhunts began in this country for Clement Cuffy who was only 22 years old. He had come to the attention of the police when there was an attempted robbery at a Post Office at Cane Grove on the East Coast of Demerara. During the robbery a shootout took place and a policeman was wounded. Cuffy escaped, but his accomplice, Leslie DaSiva, was caught. Cuffy was fingered in another brutal slaying when, during another attempted robbery, Kumarie Singh was blasted to death in her bedroom by a double-barrelled shotgun at Supply, Mahaica. As a boy. I recall, (we read the newspapers avidly for news about Cuffy), these incidents had driven fear into the hearts and minds of the residents in the area, especially the farmers.

For reasons best known to himself, Cuffy transferred his activities to the West Coast. Using a Winchester rifle he stole and calling himself "General Satan," he created havoc in the villages along the Coast. On September 5, 1959, how-ever, Cuffy’s hideout was pinpointed at Naamryck village and was surrounded by armed ranks of the Police Force, including the young David Rose. He and Constable Sampson miraculously escaped death as Cuffy blasted his way out of the trap he was in, killing Detective Constable 4753 Chester and seriously wounding Corporal 4633 Edgar Benn and Detective Constable Bhagwandat Singh. A bullet pierced the felt hat Sampson was wearing and I remember reading that Rose’s metal military hat was shot off his head. But John Campbell, in his informative "Policing in Guyana," from which I got most of the details for this section of my story, does not mention this fact. Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me. After the confrontation with the Police, Cuffy plunged into a swamp and made good his escape. He left behind several rounds of .22 ammunition, enough food for several weeks, personal belongings, three cartons of lighthouse cigarettes, and a diary. I cannot recall if its contents were ever made public.

In a small society such as ours the news of the shootout at Naamryck village spread far and wide and panic gripped the villages along the West Coast. Cuffy was not only armed but decidedly dangerous.

The Police now determined on bolder action. Cuffy was branded "Public Ennemy No 1" and a reward of $500.00 was offered for his capture, dead or alive. A large contingent of armed Police men led by David Rose now began a manhunt in earnest for Cuffy. But he was one step ahead of them. Cuffy was able to monitor the progress of the manhunt for him by using a radio he had stolen from a villager. The Police had to rely on information gleaned from residents of the various villages as they made their way towards where Cuffy was allegedly located.

The drama of the event intensified on September 8, when an aged foreman of Estate laborers, one Shamsundai, was held up at gunpoint by Cuffy at the ironically named LeDestin, three miles from Parika. Cuffy took the old man’s food and turned him loose to run through the bush. Shamshundai headed straight for the Police station and registered an account of the incident. This information was relayed to the Leonora Police station and soon a party of 24 armed Policemen, led by Neil Issacs and Deryck McLeod was rushed to LeDestin. Shamsundai was appointed to lead the Police party to where Cuffy was supposedly holed up but he became ill halfway through the exercise and had to be taken home.

Later the same day, farmers working aback of Plantation Ruby came face to face with Cuffy dressed in a jute bag. Again it appeared that Cuffy did not harm them and they were able to report the encounter to the Leonora Police station. More armed policemen, 36 in all, this time under the command of Crime Chief David Rose, left to reinforce the other party which was led by Neil Issacs and Deryck McLeod. A cordon with a three mile radius was established around where Cuffy was suspected to be.

At 6:15 PM on the same day Cuffy was spotted emerging from a cassava farm. When he realized that the law men were almost upon him he took aim at Constable Maurice Williams who was warned by Constable Neville Sue who had seen Cuffy take aim at Williams. Sue then shot Cuffy in the hip and he fell to the ground, writhing in pain but begging the lawmen not to shoot him ("Oh God don’t shoot meh"). But he would not let go of the Winchester rifle which he had been carrying throughout his ordeal and only relinquished it when Sue threatened to shoot him again. It was later discovered that Cuffy had two festering wounds on his leg which he had sustained in the confrontation with the Police at Naamryck village and which clearly slowed him down. He was dead thirty five minutes later at the surgery at Dr "Tussie" Williams. The reward of $500.00 was paid to Samshundai.

In 1959 the nation hunted Cuffy. 49 years later we are hunting down Rawlins. In the interim Guyana does not seem to grasp the fact that men do not ordinarily pick up a Winchester rifle or an AK-47 for no apparent reason. Behind the phenomena of Cuffy and Rawlins there are hidden, but powerful sociological factors, which, if we do not understand them in the shortest possible time, will mean, that in the not too distant future, we will be confronting fighters who are more determined and better armed and playing for greater stakes. There must be something in the failures of our society which throw up these figures on such a regular basis. We had better look to them.