Posted on 01/26/2008 2:37:16 PM PST by LibWhacker
GEORGETOWN (AFP) - - Gunmen with assault rifles shot and killed 11 people in a Guyana village early Saturday, in an attack police blame on a criminal gang whose leader has threatened widespread violence.
At least five of the victims were children, said Divisional Police Commander Leroy Brummel. Three survivors were hospitalized with gunshot wounds.
The killing in the village of Lusignan was a "cowardly act" by "sick, demented criminals," said President Bharrat Jagdeo, addressing his country and appealing for calm.
"We have to ensure this does not spread ethnic tension," said Jagdeo. "These are criminals. We have to hunt them down."
The targeted village's population is mainly of East Indian heritage. Guyana's two main ethnic groups are the descendants of East Indian indentured laborers and the descendants of black African slaves.
The attacks follow reports of telephone threats by Rondell Rawlins, said to head a gang of some 20 heavily armed black men he organized after breaking out of prison in 2002.
Rawlins reportedly threatened widespread violence after the disappearance of his heavily pregnant common-law wife, which he blames on police.
Police say Rawlins is responsible for a series of murders, robberies and kidnappings in the past years, including the slaying of an agriculture minister in 2006 and the abduction of a US diplomat in 2003.
Lusignan, is a stronghold of the president's Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPPC), located 16 kilometers (ten miles) east of the capital Georgetown.
The gunmen kicked down the doors of five wooden homes in Lusignan and shot their victims dead, police said.
Those killed included a couple and their granddaughter in one house, and a mother and her two children in another.
Shocked residents howled and wept in grief as they mourned their dead.
"They didn't come here to rob, they came here to slaughter," Lusignan resident Jag Singh told an AFP correspondent who visited the village.
Several villagers bitterly complained that the police arrived one hour after the shooting, despite repeated calls to a police station located just over six kilometers (four miles) away.
Police recovered spent shells from high caliber rifles and a set of binoculars from the crime scene.
Just hours before the slaughter in Lusignan, criminals assaulted the heavily fortified headquarters of the country's police force.
Two policemen suffered minor injuries during the attack, said Police Commissioner Henry Green, adding that spent shells recovered from the scene indicated that the gunmen had used M-16 military assault rifles.
Police believe the attack was a ruse to distract them from the raid on Lusignan.
I think Hugo is a serious threat to the sates.....
woops “states” whew,did I catch it in time..lets look
Kool Aid drinkers?
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