Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

Five print workers murdered execution-style in Guyana
08-10-2006

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AFP): Gunmen shot five newspaper printing press workers in the back of the head late Tuesday in a suburb south of here, in what police suspected was a gang-related crime.

A guard at the Kaieteur News building entrance was shot and wounded in the skull before the 15 gunmen rushed inside and flushed the workers from their hiding places, Police Commissioner Henry Greene told reporters.

The workers were made to lie on the ground and shot in the back of the head, he said, adding that a sixth worker escaped the massacre by staying hidden in a toilet.

Kaieteur News is an East Indian-owned newspaper, and four of the victims were from the East Indian community. The fifth was Afro-Guyanese.

Kaieteur News publisher Glenn Lall described the gunmen as a "bunch of cowards". He said the crime would not keep the Wednesday edition of his paper from going out.

The police commissioner said the 15 gunmen were suspected members of a gang that operates in two Georgetown suburbs.

He also said another man was killed and three others injured earlier Tuesday not far from the printing press, 13 kilometers (eight miles) south of Georgetown. He did not say whether those crimes were related to the printing press massacre.

Guyana, with 800,000 inhabitants, is divided between an Indian majority, which holds political power, and an Afro-Guyanese minority.

Black gangs have attacked East Indians in the past few years while death squads have executed some young Afro-Guyanese.

Candidates of the two communities will dispute Guyana's presidency on August 28th.