Injured Guyanese policeman dies in hospital

GEORGETOWN — One of four Guyanese policemen who were ambused and shot while on patrol in a village on the East Coast of the capital, died at the Georgetown Hospital on Monday night, while another remains in critical condition.

Hospital spokesman, Kwame McKoy confirmed yesterday the death of 26 year-old Sherwin Alleyne, who along with his three other colleagues were ambushed by armed criminals while patrolling in the village of Coldingen at an industrial site when they came under fire that caused their vehicle to burst into flames.

The three other wounded policemen, all of whom had to be rushed to the Georgetown Hospital where they were admitted, are: Ray Guinness (41), Ravi Outar (24) and Marlon Cruickshank (21). Cruickshank remains in critical condition in the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital.

The Guyana Police Force has been coming under increasing attacks from gunmen in some East Coast villages in a mixture of political disturbances and criminal violence, particularly since the escape from the Georgetown Prison on February 23 of five armed and dangerous criminals, some on murder charges.

In the continuing but so far unsuccessful manhunt for the fugitives from justice, the police high command has also claimed possession of information linking the escapees with some of the more recent killings and armed robberies in and out of Georgetown.

A Central Bank governor as Panday’s deputy?

PORT-OF-SPAIN — The outgoing governor of the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Winston Dookeran, an economist, is being favoured by loyalists of the main opposition United National Congress (UNC) to become the party’s deputy leader to its former prime minister and party boss, Basdeo Panday.

Dookeran, a former senior minister in the “one love” government of former prime minister and current president of the republic, ANR Robinson, in which Panday was foreign minister, did not had his five-year term as Central Bank governor extended by Prime Minister Patrick Manning.

He is expected to demit office next month and be succeeded by Trinidad-born Ewart ‘Posey’ Williams, one of the former vice-presidents of the International Monetary Fund.

Dookeran himself has been declining to comment on both his non-extension as Central Bank Governor and the calls being made for him to become actively involved in the politics of the UNC and be elected as deputy leader, a post once held briefly by the former controversial attorney-general, Ramesh Maharaj.

According to a report in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper, there is now a developing lobby within the UNC for Dookeran to take up the vacant post of deputy political leader. But this will have to be a decision of the UNC’s Central Committee which is due to have its weekly meeting today.

Without wishing to be officially identified “just yet”, a number of leading UNC personnel have said that Dookeran “would be ideal to fill the vacancy of deputy leader… He is a stable, reliable, solid individual who can lend balance to the UNC. Better yet, if he is so disposed, he would be welcome to contest a seat at the forthcoming general election.”

This lobbying development has come against increasing reports of behind-the-scenes moves for the return of Ramesh Maharaj to the fold of the UNC.

But Panday has been warned privately and publicly by some of his key colleagues to expect a rupture in the party should Maharaj be allowed to return.

So far both Panday and Maharaj have declined to comment on reports of a secret “reconciliation” meeting. But Panday did tell the media he did not believe in having “permanent enemies”.