Attack on Chesters is escalation of racist crime - ROAR
Stabroek News
August 9, 2002
“The savage act of reprisal ... against the Chester family [is] an indication of the further escalation in the terrorists’ self-declared war against Indians.” So said the ROAR Guyana Movement in a press release yesterday.
The group has offered its support to the family who it described as “doing their duty as good citizens of this country.”
Edris Chester and family were shot at while their homes were torched and their livestock destroyed in retaliation for supposedly assisting the police force and the army, beginning with Edris’ indignation over an attack and robbery on an Indo-Guyanese. Two members of the family were injured during the assault on Wednesday morning.
According to ROAR, the race difference goes to the heart of why the Chester family was attacked since “the terrorists... are trying to cow into submission those Africans who disagree with [the use of] violence against innocent Indians.”
The release also went on to say that the targeting of policemen is also in the same vein since they are “castigated” for “protecting” Indians.
“Unless the government acts now... to root out these bandits they will continue to grow and increase their depredations against all Guyanese who they define as their enemy” the release quoted Ravi Dev, MP, leader of ROAR as saying. Dev went on to say that African-Guyanese should be aware that they “will all be held hostage.... by these terrorists”.
ROAR also pointed to what it described as the increasing “anti-Indian” acts of outrage, such as the brutal cutting off of a recent victim’s hair after her family was robbed and terrorised.
The group said that these are acts “designed to send a message to all Indians that even the very signs of their identity are objects of hatred.”