Report on the Atrocities Committed in the Rupununi Region 

A note to the reader: 

The following information was condensed for the purposes of brevity for this website, this report was compiled from interviews with the most prominent militant traditionalist ex-combatants who continue to live in exile in Brazil and Venezuela, as well as surviving victims still residing in Guyana. All interviews were conducted by the late Mr. Francisco Luna de Bomparte (a member of the Warrau Tribal Nation) at the special request of the Grand Council of Chiefs of the Pan-Tribal Confederacy of Amerindian Tribal Nations; and were conducted over a six year period from 1993 - 1999. 

Most of these facts are disputed by the Guyana Police & Defence Force but are supported eyewitness accounts and by members of the Jesuit Missionary Order of the Catholic church who are among the greatest defenders of Amerindian Rights in Guyana. You may decide for yourself whether you wish to accept or reject the following findings. 

REPORT ON THE ATROCITIES COMMITTED IN THE RUPUNUNI REGION OF GUYANA IN 
JANUARY 1970. 

On December 31st 1969, militant traditionalists from the Makushi and Wapishana Tribal Nations with the logistical support of the European cattle ranchers of the Rupununi and covert Venezuelan military aid - rose in armed rebellion to the illegal annexation of British recognized Makushi and Wapishana Tribal Territory (the entire Rupununi Region) - by the People's National Congress regime of the Stalinist dictator Forbes Linden Burnham; of the newly independent (1966) 'People's co-operative Republic of Guyana'. The security forces of Guyana then (as now) were predominantly (99%) non- Amerindians, and the thuggery of these rudimentarily educated young men drawn from the bottom of Guyanese society was also a constant provocation to Amerindians of the Rupununi; as a result : 

5 Policemen in Lethem Town were shot at point blank range and killed - by 1 Makushi man whom the five Policemen had been torturing for the previous three days, after taking him into custody for 'routine questioning' (a code word for 'senseless beating') based on a wealthy rancher's allegation of cattle rustling. The five Policemen had handcuffed him to the bars of a cell for the previous three days - while they all had taken turns beating him all over his body. He was also denied food for the entire three days, after satisfying them that he was indeed innocent - he was released on the morning of December 31st and told to "walk home"; some fifty miles away. 

As it happenned he saw a truck full of gun-toting Amerindian men heading south on the single road that connects LethemTown to the coastal settlements of Guyana, and he flagged the vehicle down; upon being informed that a rebellion was underway the man who had just been beaten by the non-Amerindian Police of Lethem town for the last three days - begged to join so he could "get revenge on those bitches" to use his own words. 

He was hoisted aboard the truck and given a semi-automatic rifle with a full magazine. Upon reaching Lethem the vehicle headed straight for the Police Station where the 'brave' officers hid in fear, their innocent victim of the last three days recounts how he "shot the first one in the head as soon as he entered the door - killing him instantly, then stood over the other four one by one as they begged for their lives before he shot them too". It must be noted here that this man claims that the same Policemen raped one of his sisters in the same Police Station several months before his own savage beating. 

1 non-Amerindian civillian who was illegally squatting on Makushi territory was shot and killed when he opened fire on a a group of Makushi men who ordered himto "get off their land and go back to Georgetown". 

6 non-European Rupununi cattle ranchers (who did not support the 
rebellion) were shot and wounded in reprisal attacks by Makushi and 
Wapishana men who had been brutalised by the police as a result of 
unproven cattle rustling allegations. 

The Venezuelan Army (without the knowledge of the then Venezuelan President) ALLEGEDLY assured the Amerindian rebels that if they held the Rupununi for a certain number of days - that they would move their troops into the Rupununi to protect the Amerindians and safeguard their liberation. The Brazillian Army ALLEGEDLY moved 20,000 troops to near the Guyana border to advance a secret desire of the time to incorporate the Rupununi Region into the Federal Republic of Brazil. 

On January 2nd 1970, the Guyana Defence Force arrived in the Rupununi with orders to put down the rebellion, but before the GDF troops landed the Venezuelan Armed Forces (who have always considered Amerindians west of the Essequibo river in Guyana to be 'Venezuelan citizens'), fearing that 'their citizens' would be massacred; covertly airlifted all the rebels and their families to Bolivar State in southern Venezuela where an entire settlement in Santa Helena was subsequently constructed for them. 

Finding their intended victims beyond reach, the GDF commanding officers and soldiers vented their rage on the innocent Makushi and Wapishana tribesmen and women left behind. 

53 Amerindian homes were burned to the ground. 
81 Amerindian girls and women were raped, one of them was a 12 year old Makushi virgin at the time who was merely a cousin of one of the rebels - she was raped with a Coca-Cola bottle by Guyanese soldiers so that she would be better abled to 'accommodate' them; she was then gang-raped by the entire 30 man platoon who left her bleeding and unconscious. 
147 Makushi and Wapishana men and boys were arrested and sentenced to between 1 and 3 years of imprisonment in Georgetown. 
326 Makushi and Wapishana men and boys between the ages of 14 - 61 were severely beaten, some into unconsciousness. 7 Makushi men who were suspected of being of the group that fired a Bazooka (unsuccessfuly) at the GDF aircraft as it landed at the Lethem airstrip - were confined for 2 days in the Lethem Abbatoire with the roting corpses of the 5 dead policemen. 

An estimated 500 head of Amerindian owned cattle were slaughtered. 
None of the Makushi and Wapishana victims of the atrocities of January 
1970 were rebels. Their only 'crime' was being members of Tribal Nations 
that dared to retaliate against intolerable conditions in their own 
territories - a right that is enshrined in the third paragraph of the 
preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These atrocities 
have never been reported in the media in any detail, merely alluded to in 
vague references to the 'Rupununi Rebellion' ; and they remain the darkest 
secret in the history of the Republic of Guyana - who's mythical motto is 
' one nation, one people, one destiny'. Additionally, the rape of 
Amerindian females by GDF soldiers, Police brutality, illegal occupation 
of Amerindian territories,illegal arrest and detention Amerindians by 
non-Amerindian Police in Amerindian territories and rampant 
anti-Amerindian prejudice by non-Amerindian Guyanese continue to be 
serious problems in Guyana ; where it seems as though virtually every 
international law applicable to indigenous peoples is violated on a daily 
basis with seeming impunity. 
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