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Kaieteur News
Sunday August 11, 2013
“That thing ruined ... From page 15 the youths ordered the men to lie face down, “Harry” said he knew that the men were there to kill. Harripersaud survived by not coming out of the toilet like the men ordered. “I don't know who mek da decision fuh me da night. Maybe was god. Me curl up and stay in that toilet till everything, and place get back quiet,” the West Coast Demerara resident related. Harripersaud said that he watched helplessly through a crease in the door and saw his colleagues' “feet jumping”, with each passing gunshot as the life was snuffed out of them. Found lying face down with bullets to the back of their heads, were Chetram Persaud called “Boyo” who was 46 years old at the time
of his death; Eion Wegman, 47, who resided at Lot 51 Fourth Street, Alberttown, Georgetown, which is now known as the Pet Shop; Richard Stewart, 24, of Lamaha Park, East La Penitence; and the youngest of them, 22-year-old Mark Maikoo (Marko) of Company Park, Yarrow Dam, La Penitence. Year after year, Kaieteur News would feature articles in remembrance of fallen colleagues who were ruthlessly executed by a group of misguided and cold-blooded youths. This year, I opted to take up the task of penning a few lines in memory of the fallen members of the Kaieteur News family. I am not among those who have vivid recollection of that night, but from what
has been related to me from some of my most senior colleagues, I also felt a sense of loss. On Friday last, I ventured off to meet with the families of those who were killed. Many of them had changed their telephone numbers and addresses, but, I was able to meet with Dhanesh and Dwijesh Persaud, sons senior pressman Chetram Persaud. They lived not very far away from the printery, so as the sounds of gunshots spread, they took precaution, clueless that those bullets were being fired at their loved one. “We know the sounds did coming from that direction, but we didn't think much about it, because we say that them men wouldn't go in till at the back there,” Dhanesh
The Kaieteur News printery at Eccles Industrial Site where five pressmen were killed Persaud, 20, related. The man added that just minutes after the sounds faded, a man was heard screaming that the printery was attacked. He said that he, his b r o t h e r, a n d m o t h e r, Malwantie Persaud wasted no time in rushing over to his father's workplace to make sure he was okay. But what they saw was their father's lifeless body lying face down alongside others in a pool of blood. Less than a year after, Malwantie Persaud died. “She take things on until
she died. She had breast cancer, but she was still going strong. But after daddy die, is like she give up on life. She stop taking medication and so,” Dwijesh Persaud, 20 said. The mother of Richard Stewart also passed away due to similar stress, and his father noted that he is, so far, being able to cope with the loss of his wife and child. He could not say much. Meanwhile, relatives of Mark Maikoo said that the man's wife, in searching of closure, along with their four months old daughter at the
time, left the couple's home to live elsewhere. Unfortunately, despite much effort, I was unable to locate her, as well as relatives of Eion Wegman and Shameez Mohamed, since they too changed their addresses and telephone numbers. Indeed, after seven years, this has remained the harshest blow to the media fraternity. The deaths of these pressmen have been considered as an attack on press freedom; we therefore consider them martyrs. May their souls rest in peace.